Sounds like the $$$$ is made on service, upgrades, and repairs. The above sites mentioned seem to have the marketing plan down very well. They claim to have "custom" clocking speeds (not overclocking), that is proprietary to them and only them. Lol I bet they snag up a ton of people who go to the "double your money every day" kind of 'trading' seminars...
I think the first $$$$ line is on the new computer mark-up. I have examined their parts lists on their computers once. My estimate is their prices are from 50% to 100% higher compared to what you can get DIY. But you are a trader... your time is valuable... you may not have the EXPERTISE (building a new computer requires a MSc degree no less...)... or you don't care to roll up your sleeves - You should be playing golf! Whichever the case may be. Building a computer for trading is not for everyone... A perfect computer should never break down. Of course the extended warranty is a very comforting peace of mind for anybody. I suspect that these days "upgrades" really mean pitching your box and get a faster one. And re-install your apps and migrate the data. I have seen one of those specialized trading computer vendors showing up consistently in the Trader's Expo exhibit hall.
FYI, best price I've seen on the SATA III 6.0 Gig However it's only 64 gig http://www.newegg.com/Special/ShellShocker.aspx?cm_sp=ShellShocker-_-20-148-357-_-01272011
If it's the best price per gugabyte then you can just get 2 or 3 of these and configure them to work as a single drive if the motherboard allows it.
Comment on this drive from Hot Deals.... "... Newegg.com - Crucial C300 64GB Solid State Drive for $100 Crucial C300 64GB 2.5" SSD for $100 today. At $1.56 per GB, seems like an amazing deal for an SSD, however beware many people reported freeze-up issues with the C300 SSD on Windows 7 and Linux operating systems with various desktop and laptop computers. Despite all the positive reviews, we suggest the average consumer look at a different SSD other than the C300. Newegg will not accept returns for refunds on this drive, and Crucial has spent months trying to fix some customers' freeze-up issues with no reported solution. Our favorite consumer-grade SSD today is the G.Skill Phoenix Pro & Sniper Series (which seem to be identical drives under 2 names). The G.Skill can occasionally be found for around $1.85/GB, but not today. Also a new wave of SSDs will come out soon, including a OCZ Vertex 3 Pro expected to have 493 MBytes/sec read performance when used with a SATA 6Gbps port..." FWIW... I have 5 SSDs.. all Intel X25s. Nary a hitch in any of them, though I did have one die shortly after put into use last year. Intel replaced it quickly under warranty. And due to Intel's reputation for reliability, I won't be buying another brand until their reliability catches up.
That's funny. Looks like nobody opened the link. Here's the one for the SSD. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...lickDeals-_-NA-_-NA-_-NA&Item=N82E16820148357
I have decided to build the third i7 box. Sorry Went Fishing. I am so far kind of an Intel fan. And more than that this time I want to experiment with overclocking. (And I have no patience to wait for online orders. ) I bought a MSI Big Bang Xpower motherboard: http://www.msi.com/product/mb/Big-Bang-XPower.html I didn't realize that it was a board designed for high-end gaming. What caught my eyes was the 6 x PCIe x16 slots (they said only 2 @x16, 2 @x8, 2 @x4 - something like that. But I think it would work). I want to have this box to potentially drive 8 to 10 monitors. One unfortunately thing: there is no onboard video out. When I started putting the PCIe X16 cards on the box, no video display at all. I couldn't even get to BIOS. At first I thought it was a PCIe 1.0 versus 2.0 compatibility issue. (Mobo = PCIe 2.0, cards = PCIe 1.0). But after getting some PCIe 2.0 display cards, still didn't work. Since there is no other way to see the display (no Windows or any driver loaded at this point), I am scratching my head on how I can trouble-shoot this thing. The plan is to bring my box to the store and have them help me trouble-shoot. Have any of you had a MoBo that doesn't have any built-in VGA video? How do you get into the first monitor display for your BIOS?
Boli One question, how many memory slots did you fill ?? When we flipped the switch on mine, we had the same issue. Removed all but ONE memory chip, and everything LIT UP and worked fine.