Good idea to get a new rig, then use both of them to "divide the load"... all hooked up through a router. I think lots of traders do that now.
I'm leaning towards upgrading. I'm a short term trader with 2-3 trading apps running at the same time however online use is done on a separate machine. One other question regarding the video cards - are either/both of these cards, the FX 570 or NVS 290 capable of running both a wide screen monitor and a normal (square) flat panel monitor at the same time?
The FX570 will run a 30" monitor at native resolution. If your monitors will be smaller, then either is just fine.
I currently own BOTH the Dell 8300 and the T3400 with 4 gigs of RAM and Windows XP Pro. Not sure why you would need to upgrade given that all you do is post in the "Politics and Religion" forum on ET. Does a "prop" ET poster really need more computing power? Your 1 gig of RAM and the dinky L2 cache of 512-KB of your Dell 8300 should suit your needs just fine. The T3400 is a wonderful rig though. Especially with the dual NVS-290 video cards, the bigger power supply unit, XP Pro, and a 3-year warranty!
Ha ha! One of the assets of being a trader, as I'm sure you know, is having a lot of free time. I'm done for today so here I am again... Think I'll order up the T3400 today.
It's a great rig. And you just can't go wrong with the 3-year warranty either! I've had mine with XP Pro for exactly one year now. It is built with a metal case, and has been bullet proof for me. I ordered mine with the bigger power supply unit just to be safe. It came with the E8200 processor at 2.66 with the 6MB L2 cache and dual NVS-290's to support 4 monitors. In the future, if you ever want to upgrade the processor to something faster, the E8600 at 3.33 GHz is the last in the line of LGA 775 socket processors. Interesting to note, the E8400 at 3.0 GHZ is only $168, and the E8500 at 3.16 GHz is only $185 at Newegg.
If I go with the Quad Q6600 2.40 GHz, will it be overkill versus a Core Duo? Both are the 525W versions.