Because some of the really cheap memory has mixed chips (i.e. same spec chips from different manufacturers). I've heard of people having problems with these.
Concerning the Zip or Cd burner, please excuse my ignorance, what files would I need to copy ?? A floppy has always met my past needs? . Say you have 200 50kb charts, 80 spreadsheets, emails, bookmarks, correspondences, and 50 other things you don't want to lose if your hard drive shreds. Instead of copying them 5 or 6 at a time onto floppys, which might take you hours, you can keep them all in one folder on your desktop and click your mouse twice and copy them all in about 20 seconds. The peace of mind being able to back up your stuff a couple of times a week in about a minute is priceless. The zip and the burnable CD are the most useful new computer devices to come along in 15 years. It's like trading your pair of roller skates in for a Lamborghini. You've got to have one or the other. (and if the kids screw your computer up your covered)
This might be too simplistic of a solution, but the only time I overload my system, I increased "Page memory", and that cleared it up. I think you could have virtually ulimited page memory as per your hard drive size??
If you are going to trade, you need to have a multiple monitor video card. I use matrox quad and have been very happy. I also run windows 2000, you need a stable operating system. All else looks ok.
Like the rest of you, I spend some free time pricing out new systems and contemplating whether it is better to go with a desktop on steroids or to just opt for the workstation with the dual Xeon processors, dual hard drives, etc... The best site that I have come across as far as pricing out the options(one that has all top of the line components: motherboards, processors, hard drives, video cards) is www.monarchcomputer.com Note that I have not ordered anything from them yet, but they do have a good Reseller Ratings and I am very impressed with the products they offer...I also have noticed that they now offer the Matrox Parhelia video card which was just released as a retail product as of June 30th.... I am going to probably opt for a desktop with Rambus PC800 RDRAM as I have read numerous articles on how the RDRAM is superior to all else...They also offer Corsair RDRAM, but I think the 1GB of Rambus RDRAM is probably a better choice...The prices are high on alot of the components, especially some of the better cases like Lian-Li Aluminum cases...But either way it is nice to see a site that has all of these parts categorized...From there you could probably do some more leg work and find this stuff to put together or to hire a guy to do it for you, if you so desire... They also have a very extensive number of options for putting together a workstation(if you are really getting serious) with Dual Xeon processors, 2GB of RDRAM and a number of video cards like a Matrox Parhelia and a Matrox 550 for some flat screens...From what I see this site probably could give you a really top of the line workstation for a better price than some of the sites that have been mentioned that cater to the trading firms who go for the high end stuff for putting together 4-8 monitors on a single workstation... Feedback is appreciated...
I have had very good service from www.newegg.com . They have a wide selection, competitive prices, excellent packing and shipping service. If you live outside CA, you don't have to pay sales tax. Fleance
I use newegg.com for almost everything. I use ussa.com also. Sometimes they have better prices than newegg but it takes them a while to get it out the door. Mike
Go to www.supermicro.com. Get one of the Xeon Motherboards that say: "Two-way interleaved memory banks provide outstanding memory performance. (must use a pair of DIMMs for memory to function)" Match this with two Xeons with 512k of cache and these things will scream. On the top there is a menu of "Where to buy." nitro