I am looking into setting up a 4 24" monitor set up. Should I buy a computer with Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 (3.00GHz/1333MHz/2X4MB L2) and Dual 256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor DVI Capable or Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66GHz/1333MHz/4MB L2) and Dual 512MB PCIe x16 nVidia Quadro FX 1700, Dual Monitor DVI Cable Would the faster processor be more beneficial or would the better video cards be better? Thanks for your help.
go with the lower for both- plenty for trading. I just went w/ a few of the nvs 290 from dell, works great. I think the intel extreme is a quad core, not fully up on my geek chip lingo. best bang there would prob. be the fastest dual core, I think quad potential goes unused for avg trading. get at least 2 g ram and you'll be good. xp pro, no vista.
You really don't need Quadro video cards. These cards are designed to be used in the professional 3D and video editing world and none of the extra features it has over a standard Nvidia GeForce will be used by your trading/charting software. And for the cpu go for the mainstream dual or quad core processor, its more than enough.
The Quadro NVS 280/285/290 are inexpensive, fanless, low power cards intended for 2D workstations. They are ideal for trading. They are not intended for quick 3D graphics. The Quadro FX cards are intended for performance 3D. In response to the OP, CPU performance will be more important than graphics performance - spend the money on the CPU. Depending on which apps, and how many apps you are running at the same time, a quad core may not give much over a dual core. It's hard to make a definitive judgement with knowing exactly how the box is to be used. If going for a dual core, go for the E8400 or E8500 - they ave 6Mb Level 2 cache, run cooler and are the latest available.
Excellent post! Go with the faster processor. The NVS graphics cards are 2-dimensional and will handle all of your trading applications with ease. People get way too carried away with graphics card performance for trading, in my opinion. Hell, I've got an old nVidia MX-440 AGP card with 64mb of RAM in my back-up computer (Dell Dimension 8300) that is 5 years old and it runs fine! I am currently using a Dell Precision T3400 with dual NVS-290 256mb cards ( supporting 4 monitors ) and the Duo-Core E8200 processor at 2.66 with 6 mb of cache and 4 gigs of RAM and am lovin' it~!
To be sure, you need to check your Task Manager while your trading rig is fully loaded and see how much CPU you are often using. Most trading apps use very little CPU except to load and shut down... if that's the case, having an expensive and fast CPU will be mostly a waste.
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 (3.00GHz/1333MHz/2X4MB L2) and Dual 256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor DVI Capable ...is my advice. I run the QX6850 and if I bought GPU's today I would buy the NVS cards.
Finally got my computer. Thank you all for your help. ended up going with a refurbished Dell unit: Precision Workstation T7400 Tower: Quad Core Intel Xeon Processor E5440 (2.83GHz,2X6M L2,1333) Dual 256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Quad Monitor DVI Capable 4 GB DDR2 ECC SDRAM 677MHz (2 DIMMs) 160 GB SATA 3.0Gb/s and 8MB DataBurst Cache 750 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) And 4 E248WFP LCDs. I know it's a bit of an overkill, but refurbished units have good pricing and I didn't wanna buy a new computer for a while.
that looks like a real nice system. i'm sure you will enjoy those four 24" monitors - plenty of real estate and a good system to push it all.