The T3400 has been a trading classic.. and currently Dell Outlet has some good deals... X38 mobo w/Q9550 CPU (quad) 4G RAM WinXP + Vista + W7. 3-yr warranty $809 + tax and shipping (which might be free) If you ordered this from Dell's retail site, would be $1,468... wouldn't do that though. I priced out the parts from Newegg and even with tax and shipping, this T3400 costs the same as getting the parts and BIY.... assumes you'd need to buy an OEM copy of XP. Dell Tech Support for the Precision Line is EXCELLENT.. not the same as for the el-cheapo lines.
Don't know which mod moved this thread from "Hardware" to "Educational Resources", but was inappropriate... (Maybe just practicing up for "Obama controls".. you know, where everything you hear and say is censored...)
Standard is the Nvidia Quadro NVS 290.. it will handle DVI @ 1920x1200 and up to 28" monitors. If you want to run 30"ers in DVI, the next upgrade would be the FX570/580. The mobo will handle 3, dualheads for 6-monitor display. If you want more monitors, you can use quad port cards.
For trading, I am still on XP machines, and have not been impressed with anything newer from Microsoft. Since XP is no longer widely available or supported on new machines, I'll wait until mine die, then consider what is out there. I have tried Vista and a beta of 7... neither is faster than what I have set up on my XP boxes. So why switch?
Dell (and I believe HP also) still have XP available on some models.. and will probably continue for at least the next year.
I know you are big fan of the Dell outlet store and you do your research. Do you get new or refurbished parts or combo? 3 years is good. That's a good price. What about PSU?
I talked with Dell about their outlet machines. They said they can go into the outlet for a number of reasons. Most common is that they were returned by customer for some reason... could be a defect which Dell repaired (I once bought one with a flaky optic drive. Had I been a noob, I might have returned the computer. Dell would have replaced the drive and sold it again through Outlet. In my case, I just had them send me another drive.).. could be returned just because customer decided it didn't meet his needs... Dell has 21 day free return period on Outlet machines, just as they do on new. Some are "scratch and dent".. some were ordered by customer but never took delivery.... apparently those can't be resold as "new". (My best deal was on a "scratch and dent" unit... the top part of the case had a small area where the black paint was scratched. I went over the area with a black magic marker, and unless you were specifically looking for it, you'd never notice.) In almost all cases, all parts of an Outlet machine are new or nearly new... but as you get the same warranty as "new", makes a lot of sense to buy from Outlet and save some $$$. I've never heard complaints about Dell's PSUs... adequate power, good quality. Years ago they used proprietary pinning, but since about 2000 or so, they've used ATX standard. The current deals are the best prices I've seen ($809) on units with Q9550 and 4G of RAM.