I've been thinking about this Dell at Microcenter. Just need to add a quad card. What would it cost to build a similar PC? I'd do a build if it doesn't cost more than $500 more. Last question, how do Microcenters prices compare to Newegg? Thanks http://www.microcenter.com/product/420850/XPS_8700_Desktop_Computer
That's a pretty good price. It would probably cost you about the same at Newegg to build it: $310 Intel Core i7-4770 Processor 3.4GHz $ 60 CORSAIR Hydro Series H60 (water cooling for CPU) $140 Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) $220 24GB DDR3-1600 RAM $ 90 2TB 7,200RPM Hard Drive $150 256GB Solid State Drive $200 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 $ 50 Blu-ray Combo Drive $ 90 Rosewill BLACKHAWK ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $150 ASUS Z97-A LGA 1150 Intel Z97 $110 CORSAIR CSM Series CS750M 750W Power Supply So its about $1550-$1600 plus you have to build it yourself. The problem with the Dell desktops is that they aren't as good quality as the Precision Workstations which are rock solid -- I've bought 5-6 over the course of the last 15 years and they never breakdown. But they are a lot more expensive because the motherboards are a lot better and are usually meant for dual socket Xeons. I think there is a lot to be gained from building it yourself since you can fine tune it to being just a trading box. You could actually save about $200 if you went the AMD/Radeon route instead of Intel/nVidia. Plus some of the Radeon cards have support for 6 mini DP ports. My build would be the following: $190 AMD FX-8350 $ 60 CORSAIR Hydro Series H60 (water cooling for CPU) $100 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) $170 16GB DDR3-2133 RAM $ 90 2TB 7,200RPM Hard Drive $170 2 X 128 Gb SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE120BW (configured in RAID 1) $250 VisionTek 900614 Radeon HD 7750 (6 Mini DP connections) $ 50 Blu-ray Combo Drive $ 90 Rosewill BLACKHAWK ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $ 80 ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 $110 CORSAIR CSM Series CS750M 750W Power Supply Total = $1360 The i7-4770 is about 10% faster than the FX-8350 but you can overclock the FX-8350 if you need more CPU cycles (which is the reason for using water cooling). Having fast I/O & RAM subsystems is very important for performance not just CPU. Thats why you are better off spending money with faster RAM & SSDs. 2133 MHz RAM is very fast as is using RAID 1 SSDs as your OS drive.
Guys I need some help. I'm looking to upgrade my system. Looked around the hardware thread, but got quickly lost.... Currently I am on a very crappy laptop that I bought for $500 back in 2008. I will either be traveling and trading (laptop)or slaving in America on a budget desktop setup of around $1000-1500 max. Are there any prebuilt computers you guys reccomend??? Is Intel i7>i5 necessary??? Any other things I need to setup 2-3 monitors, and have the programs actually run without being slow? Also let's say I hate windows 8.1....I'd prefer Windows 7 but I can install Linux/Ubuntu/Tails OS??? for free right? Or would you just reccomend buying something like these?? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883220444 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883103854 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227505 Or building some like Nitrene has listed above???
My trading rig has the same specs as the one on your first link. Actually, mine has a crappier video card than that one. But it's plenty fast for what I do, and very happy with it. I run a 24 inch monitor at 1920x1200, and 20 inch at 1680x1050. Transact AT, and Sierra Charts, plus a couple other programs, and still pretty zippy. Contrary to what most people think, trading and charting programs do not use that much horse power at all. Schaefer