A good rule of thumb for a modern computer is for power consumption of about 250 watts... more if hot processor, gamer cards, SLI, other peripherals. I ran the calculator on my Dimension 9200 trading rig... 255 watts.
Antec has one too. It's pretty good and comes with a wide variety of inputs . . . http://www.extreme.outervision.com/powercalc.jsp
That's a very nice power supply calculator. Determining the actual power size requirements is the right place to start when selecting a PSU. It's better to know the right size vs. blindly selecting on the basis that more amps/watts is better. Size your PSU not only for your current setup but also for the components you may want to add/replace and any other changes you may make over the next few years, such as overclocking. When sizing a PSU, it is as important to calculate the amps as the watts. For a small fee, there is a "Pro" version of the Outervision calculator that calculates the amps required for each voltage rail and has extra inputs for multiple video cards, etc. Once you know the size requirements in terms of amps and watts, you are in a good position to make a selection based on quality and design measures such as efficiency, operational noise, modular cable design, warranty, certifications, etc.
Choosing a Video Card Multi-screen set up has been discussed many times on Elitetrader. The most straight forward set up must be the one suggested by gnome: nVidia Quadro NVS 285. It supports two 1920x1200 monitors per card, uses passive heatsink (ie. no fan), and only draws 21W. Comparison Chart
but life was never rational... <img src="http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=1810327">
bighog, Water cooling is not something you want to do on a professional trading system. There are problems with bacteria, algae, evaporation, rust, corrosion, leaks and pump noise. There are things you can do to mitigate some of these problems, but it's a lot more maintenance than regular cooling. Leave water cooling to gamers and system tweakers. Furthermore, it's not even necessary at the speeds you're running (3.8 GHz). An aftermarket heatsink works perfectly well at that speed and beyond. If you set up your system and overclocking parameters properly, you can get up to 4.4 GHz on the E8400 processor with either a Skythe Ninja Plus or a Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme heatsink; Nexus D12SL-12 120mm heatsink fan; and Shin-Etsu X-23-7762 thermal interface material. If you're going to use a fan on the processor heatsink, then go with the Thermalright over the Skythe. If you want to try a fanless heatsink, then go with the Skythe. You can easily add a 120mm fan to the Skythe later, if needed.
'Setting The Affinity' (for multi-core PCs).Received the monthly newsletter from PCPitstop via a link from which someone mentions setting the affinity (for each core) so the load is spread to suit the architecture.32bit operating systems you do this manually(it says).64bit OS windows is better suited to multi-core but you still have to set some affinities manually (it says).How will you set your affinities and how do you do it,lol?
Leave it alone and let the operating system do the scheduling. The 32bit / 64 bit stuff sounds like a load of old rubbish to me. If anybody has any hard evidence to the contrary, please post it.