I do not understand computers at all so I need help from someone who does. I do not day trade but I do run extensive analysis on multiple markets and am constantly monitoring all client accounts so a slow computer is a real pain to say the least. Here is what I am going to get: 3.2 GHz, Xeon Processor 4 GB RAM 500 GB Hard Drive 64 MB PCle * 16 nvidia, Quadro NVS 280, Dual VGA Graphics Card? (really don't understand any of that except that it can handle 4 monitors) Will this be a competent system? Is there anything else I need to be looking for? Someone please help because the rep really didn't seem to have a clue what I needed.
LongView, the basic system looks good...one thing to try and be sure of is the hard disk runs @ 10K RPM and has as much 'on board MB cache' as possible!
You havent listed very much in the way of your requirements but that is a pretty solid system so I doubt you will be disappointed. Is this a Dell Precision 670? The only other thing you might want to consider (if money isnt an object and top performance is important) is a second processor.
Sounds like a bit of "overkill". And you've got the video card wrong. The NVS 280 will handle only 2 monitors. If you need 4, go to the Nvidia and Matrox websites and learn about quad cards.
Unless you will be installing the XP x64 version you won't need 4 gigs of RAM. XP x32 can only use 2. Also, note that not all trading apps run on x64.
Actually that isnt really true about the 2GB limit (example: http://h20331.www2.hp.com/Hpsub/cache/286185-0-0-225-121.html) but your point is well taken that 4GB is likely major overkill for the OP. The other choice of course is to run W2K3 server edition.
actually win xp can handle 3 gig and 4 if you tweak the os... look a ebay for refurb ibm workstations... they come with a year warranty they you can expand to 3 years... i am running all ibm workstations that i bought on ebay... i got an ibm 3.2ghz machine with an nvidia 3000 card last year for 1500...i sold the card for 800 bucks back on ebay and had a system with 36 gb10k scsi drive, 1 gig ram, and warranty for net $700... ibm dumps their stock the first quarter of each year... go to ebay and type in ibm xeon and you will see great things... by the way the warranty is 9 to 5 next day service at your location...ibm work stations (zpro...etc) and servers are ibm not lenovo...
Of course you are correct .. I left out that XP could be tweaked beyond 2 as the OP claimed to know nothing of computers.