dude my school just got 40 of those with dual high adjustable monitors (20" inch) for the "Finance learning center" and they are amazing, you can't go wrong getting it. i didn't have a chance to test retial trading software on them but they have Rotman Interactive Trader on them which runs fine so i'd imagine any trading software runs fine on them. edit: they don't have the xeon chip but C2D but if you get xeon then it's obviously better, mite use more power.. but that's about the only disadvantage i can think of. they are running Windows XP with 2gb ram. so you should be fine with 2gb.
1. Quads process info faster for equal clock speed. Up to a point a slower quad clock speed will be faster than a faster clock speed duo. At a given [and correct] price point, the performance of the quad and the duo is about the same. And at that price point, the quad's clock speed will be slower. 2. The computers at TradingComputers are often based upon overclocked, middle-end C2Ds (like E6750).... and a poor value. TradingComputers is for traders who don't know much about computers. Most of us here on ET would not buy from them at their prices, IMO.
and tbh you don't need the hottest piece of tech to run trading software. If you were planing on running the latest and greatest games then yes, but imo a xeon is even overkill for a trading rig. A middle of the line dual core c2d is more than enough, a decent graphic card or two if you want 4 monitors is fine. save money, spend it on something else.
The differences between the Xeon and the Pentium has been numerous but the basic differences are: 1. SMP Support (symmetric multi-processing): The ability for an individual CPU to speak to additional CPU's when handling tasks. 2. Cache Size (Xeon's traditionally have more cache then their Pentium equivalents) 3. Micro architecture (the internal wiring and layout of the CPU) These three differences separate a standard Pentium from a Xeon. The most important of which is SMP. http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/processors/xeoncomparison/
I bought a "barebones" T-3400 for 100 bucks, and i guess they made a mistake i ended up with a intel Quad Q9550. no ram, harddrive, powersupply, video. i was completely shocked when i seen this. As far as upgrades i have LG blu-ray drive, 6 gigs of ram, 1000 watt powersupply from a dell xps 700.. 32 bucks, a Radeon HD 4850 X2 by sapphire, and 2 wd 500 gig harddrives, and same processor, it works fine. ok to my question. there are 2 pci-e 16x slots, i looked around and didnt see anything about SLi or Crossfire support, was wondering if it was even possible. i know this is a workstation computer but so far its been a beast for gaming... any info would be greatly appreciated.
nope, all it was supposed to have was faceplate, hard drive cradles and fans, motherboard, heatsink. i checked the posting after i recieved it and there was nothing about a processor being included. i tried my luck for another barebones but this time a precision 390 from the same company/seller but no luck as far as a processor included, which was no biggie, i had a old pentium d 3.0 sitting around from an old build