Hey guys, I'm wanting to set up a small home system for trading. Bolimomo, scat, and others gave me great advice on the 8 monitor setup I have at my office. I'm really wanting a laptop with two 22-24" monitors as well as the laptop monitor running in the middle. I found the following for a little less than $1,400 and am wondering what the rest of you think: Intel i7 Quadcore 2.0 gigahertz 6mb cache 320 Alienware Solid State Hard Drive 6 GB DDR3 Memory 15 inch 1080p LED screen 1600x900 res Windows 7 Home 64 bit The video card is an AMD Radeon HD 6570M/5700 1.5gb Here's the youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vCHsLPRR-c&feature=youtu.be I don't need the lighting to flash, or change as that's a distraction to me. I'd just set the lighting to blue, or clear if I owned this laptop. What I don't know yet is: 1. Would this computer be fast enough to trade with? 2. Do I need a different video card to run two more monitors with it? Thanks in advance for your thoughts and advice! LEAPup
The video showed an Intel Core i7 740QM processor, which has a passmark score of 3571. Which is very nice (speedwise) for a laptop. http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7+740QM+@+1.73GHz However... I would (but I haven't) shop around for any new laptops that feature the new Intel second generation chips (the equivalents of Sandy Bridge i7-2600K or i5-2500K for laptops). Because the second generation chips (desktop) have such a significant jump in performance, you should take advantage of that and bank on (or may be wait a bit for) the newer technology. 15-inch is a bit small. But that's just me. As I like laptops with no less than 17-inch screens. You can have laptops with 17-inch or 18.4 inch screens with resolution up to (like mine) 1920 x 1080. I think you will like the added resolutions when you are travelling. My bet is that laptop only supports 1 external monitor. If you need to drive one more external monitor, you would need a USB-to-VGA (or DVI) gadget.
Get something that supports a docking station... So you can go somewhere and run it off a big screen when its convenient..
I agree. Thanks! And when will the second generation chips for laptops be out? I can wait if the improvement is that good. Btw, what do you think of three of these for a "budget" build: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236052 And what's an HDMI cable? The guys in the comments section kept recommending it, and complaining it wasn't included.
Can you give me an example? Link It's an interesting thought, no question. I'm FAR from a computer guy, took bolimomo's advice, scat, etc., ordered the parts the last time (literally parts), and had a cumputer builder/repair/nerd-but cool nerd (lol) get an 8 monitor set up for me going. Are you meaning I could plug the laptop into something like a 52" LCD HDtv? That would be amazing! What are all of the benefits that come to mind as to why a docking station would be the way to go? Thanks bro!
Maybe 3 of these for a budget build? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m_sp=Cat_Monitors-_-Best_Sellers-_-24-009-299
On thing to look out for is 2 (sometimes even 3) external monitor connectors. If you get something like HP Envy (spec in PDF), you can run the internal monitor + 2 external monitors (via HDMI and DisplayPort) at the same time. There are lots of laptops with this feature around. I just linked a reasonably inexpensive one. These will ususally have a graphics card from ATI.
On the other hand, if you want to use one of USB graphic adapters, it's better to have Intel graphics.
HDMI is a digital interface. Signal-wise it is equivalent to the DVI standard, plus the 2 audio channels. So if you use DVI cable or VGA cable and you want to play audio on the built-in speakers on the monitor, you would need to hook up the extra stereo audio cable. If you use HDMI cable, you don't. The cable is not a big deal. A 6-foot HDMI cable costs only about USD$20 or so.
You shold imo build computers while your customers order the monitors, stand (if they want one), etc., It would be a literal turn key system, as all they would need to do is hook up the cables per your instructions, and get the system running. I'd own one!