Came home from a short beach trip, and see this thread gets better. I'm going to order the cards tonight, and do this myself for the experience. I may even take the tower over to my computer guy's store, and tell him to stand back and make sure I'm putting the cards in right.
leapUP Just to be clear, are you going with the Quardo NVS 295s cards? The reason for my query is the issue of dual vs single slot cards as mentioned up thread. The ENGT430 is a half-height card, however, the heatsink does stick up some, so the card is explicitly a double-slot card and youâll want to make sure you have space for it. The Quardo NVS 295 is a single slot card and space won't be an issue. As a sidebar, TIKITRADER; When you installed the ENGT430 into the lowest slot on the motherboard (video card 3), do you feel as though you still have access to all the pin headers under the heatsink (whether you need to utilize them or not) they must be damn close to those fins.
The bottom video card cost me two sata 2 connections . There are 3 total, sata 2 ports and one is currently being used for dual front case sata connections. Everything else from what I remember is clear.
I'm using Lightspeed now, and don't care for the platform. Guess each to his own... I'm not de-railing this thread with my displeasures with LS. I'm moving over to IB now, and that's that. And yes, an SSD would be "faster" from what I have been reading, however, a Friend of mine says save the $150, and buy a second drive. I'll let the REAL computer guys in this thread correct me if I'm wrong. In the long run, depends on how much $ you've got to spend, do you really need what you want, and do you have to rely on it for your living, or are you trading "on the side..."
I don't have any experience with Lightspeed so I don't know. But I don't think it is as much what software you use, but rather how you trade that matters. I would imagine that most trading apps would cache the price data on your own disk drive after receiving from the server over the network. If you: - Use a lot of short time-frame data (e.g. tick charts) - Or monitor handreds to thousands of stock price movements - Or doing algo trading and constantly analyzing price data for trading opportunities, etc. then SSD should help you. But if you, say, only trade off 15 minute charts, then I don't think a SSD would make any difference.
I have been trying to have a new build for the last two weeks and initially it seemed like all I had to do was pick the parts, put them together and BHAM!!!. However, since I started researching parts, it's made it a little more complicated. Did I mention I suffer from OCD . Anyway, I will put down my parts here, and would be grateful if Tiki, Scataphagos, Boli and the rest could throw in their expertise. Here's a little about my trading. Majority of my trades are day trades and I tend to look for longer moves, rather than scalp. However, occasionally I will scalp, if need be. I use the 5-min charts and enter/exit using the 1-min charts. For the system I want to build, I will initially be using it with 4 monitor, with the aim of expanding it to 6, if need be. I would like to keep the budget at about $600-800 (excluding monitor, mouse, keyboard and any software) Tiki, thanks for starting such a great post that I think will help many. Btw, those Corona's await in barrel loaded with ice, so hope you guys can make it down to Florida
I think you should shop for a motherboard first. Processor: for your need I recommend i5-2500k. Very nice processor at a lower price than i7-2600k. Because you want 4 monitors, with possibility of having 6, I think you should have a motherboard that supports at least 3 PCIe X16 slots. Shop around, see what motherboard you can find. I spotted this MSI board for ~$210: (3 PCIe X16). There may be others. MSI and ASUS both make good, reliable motherboards. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130581 Here is my estimate for your build: Processor i5-2500k: $220 Motherboard: $210 8 GB RAM: $60 Power Supply 600W: $80 1 TB hard drive: $70 DVD-RW drive: $25 2 x low-end PCIe X16 video cards, dual head each: $50 ($25 x 2) Chassis: $80 Total: $795 before tax If you buy some ready-to-use i5-2500k boxes, you can get a better price. But I don't think you can find any of them supporting 3+ PCIe X16 slots that you need. If you pick a quad or hex video card, then you would have to pay a substantially higher price on the video card itself. P.S. I am going to collect my Corona in Florida someday...
Here's a Gigabyte Z68 motherboard with three PCI-E x16 slots for $100: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128495