I know a computer tech, who works for a repair vendor. They are under contract in this area to service multiple vendors (Dell, IBM, HP, etc.) He tells me 90% of the problems are with Dell machines, and he says they use their own PS & motherboards, and they are cheap quality. He would never buy a Dell.
While it's true Dell has their own PSU and mobos, I suspect there is more to this story than just "Dell is crap". Put another way... Do you really believe that for every IBM, HP, Compaq, eMachines, Sony, etc. failure, there are NINE Dell service calls?
A poster on this thread started making some ( what I would call ) "absurd" generalizations about DELL computers in general. My analogy simply points out that Chevrolet builds all sorts of cars. Some are cheap and economical, while others are performance driven and have won endurance championships in IMSA type racing and at such significant venues as LeMans. To make an "all-encompassing" stereotypical claim about DELL in general, is ridiculously naive.
Your "friend" that is a computer tech is wrong about the motherboards that Dell uses. For example, the motherboard that Dell uses in the Vostro-400 ( which this thread is about ) is made by Foxconn in China. http://www.foxconn.com/ Not Dell.
I understand what you are saying . . . but as far as configuring a new Dell Precision T3400 workstation is concerned, it is only an additional $80 to add a second PCI-Express NVS-290 card. Comes complete with the DVI and VGA cables too.
1. Disagree. The Quality of display for trading should be and likely is the same. 2. Haven't measured the temp, but likely the 8300 produces more heat. (NVS dualheads run 12-20 watts, depending upon model... how many for 8300?) More noise too if it has a fan or the extra heat causes the system fan to run faster. 3. The primary reason the 8300 is cheaper is because it's cheaper. The NVS line is designed for long life and reliability. And if you buy them correctly, they are cheap. 4. 8300 is in Nvidia's gamer line. When it was current, it was their lead gaming product. That makes it a gamer card even if it's not up to snuff with today's games. For trading, there would be no advantage to having an 8300 unless you wanted to run 30" monitor. And it would produce more heat... and more noise, and well.. you know.
8300 was never a gamer card. It was introduced about 6mo after the 8800 which has been nVidia's flagship product in every series of cards since the 6000 series... 6800, 7800 (and 7900), 8800, 9800 are/were all highend gamer cards... 6600, 7600, 8600, 9600 are/were all "budget" gamer cards... 6100-6500, 7100-7300, 8300-8400, 9500 are all lowend "buisness/home office application" cards... personally, I'm a geek and a gamer, so I haven't used much of the lowend cards to comment about noise or heat, but the 8300 is certainly no gaming card... However, I'd also argue that trading is starting to go beyond the "business/home office" environment and more into the "gaming" environment of machines and I only see the trend continuing...sure, some people will always get by with the lowend cards and ultra quiet PCs but a good portion of traders want to run the extremely graphics and CPU intensive trading applications and/or ATS in which case they need as much as you can get in both departments...and with the extreme amounts of data the exchanges send (which is just going to increase further) that has to be processed I don't see that trend reversing itself anytime soon...