Dell Precision T5810s (w/Xeon E5-1620 or better CPU) run ~$1150. You can sometimes get one for $850 from Dell Outlet. I've even seen them down to $650 a couple of times. 3-year on-site warranty included.
I'm interested in the reliability rankings for laptops. But all the articles and reviews I've read about reliability always reference a study performed by SquareTrade way back in 2009. Does anyone have a link to something more current?
I don't recommend laptops for the primary trading PCs, but I hear that alienware laptops from Dell are among the best. With desktops I never get extended warranties as I can fix most issues myself, but for a laptop, I'd want to go out at least 3 year. I don't open them and you can mail them back.
Shit, if I still had my wherewithal, I could build you a quality trading PC for whatever the components cost, +$300 bux labor and then toss in shipping. You just buy the monitors to fit your needs. Gimme' specs and I can build it damn good and damned cheep. Too bad I got out of that game a long time ago, but the principles HAVE NOT CHANGED. We're not running super 3D graphics here, and many of us are not running trading platforms that could use the multi-cored processors to their potential anyways, if at all. An 8 or 16 core processor is great and all, but the software has to be programmed to take advantage of it, and the lowest levels of the OS have to support it too. It's Win 3.x all over again. Anyone remember "extended" and "expanded" memory? DOS 3.x? UMB=HIGH in the config.sys file?
Scat, I consider do you THE expert on business class hardware and incredibly pragmatic. I want to give my 24/7 apps their own box. The current use doesn't justify VPS costs. What are your recommendations for a small form factor that I can stack next to my desk at home without producing too much sound, heat or just be garish? What is used for KVM these days?
Hey Morse, I remember reading an article about what happened to alienware when Dell brought them. A lot of the Alienware staff left because Dell were only interested in how the systyms they build were going to make Dell profit and what they could get in bulk rather than building the best systyms, then they slapped a alienware badge on the computer and hoped for the best . So they left because originally alienware used to be the best stuff you could get. Don't get me wrong they are still the best brand and very nice hardware, its just not what it used to be which was building the best systyms available.
Your last line got me. I bought my first PC, gee, I'm struggling to remember, end 1985 or early 1986. Whacking big floppy disks (5.25"?), and I decided to splurge on the HDD. No, 10 wasn't enough for me, I had to have the 20MB one. Youngsters who don't know that time will be wondering what on earth you could do with 20MB. A lot with Lotus 1-2-3 back then. And if you had more memory than you could use, you'd set up a virtual disk and load stuff into it to speed up access times. It all seems really ancient now, when we think of TB for storage and I sometimes wonder if the 48 GB RAM I have is sufficient for all the stuff I want to run concurrently.
I haven't noticed that myself. Fact is that my machine boots a LOT faster on windows 10 than it did on 7.
I'm pragmatic because (1) my home net has 4 computers now... used to have 5.... so I don't buy just 1 at a time at upgrade, (2) used workstations work just as well as new for several years and you save 75% or more off of the new price. If you want to buy the equivalent of new, Dell Outlet has them with full 3-year warranty. This last batch of 5 Precision workstations that I bought from Dell Financial Services (off-lease, 3 years old) cost me about $275 each and have now been running in my place for 4 1/2 years. (Actually, I sold my old T3400s so that the net cost of the upgrade was only about $100/unit.) I'm hoping my current bunch will last until then end of W7. Then I'll look for used or off-lease Dell Precision T5810s for ~$350 each. Ok, enough from Mr. Pinchpenny. I've never used KVM. I had only one SFF... an HP if I recall... and it was a pain. I could only use half-height/half-length video cards and was too cramped to work around comfortably. When the PSU went out, I couldn't find one for it anywhere in town... had to ship it back to the vendor, so I'm not a fan of SFF.
You're such a noob! My first PC had a tape drive. My next one had an 8" floppy drive, 64K of RAM (that's right, "K"... not a typo) and cost $5,000. My 1st HDD was 40MB with lots of bad sectors... and I thought, "wow, this is fast" ... and it cost only $400!