Thanks nolajy and mschey. I appreciate it. Originally I was considering the following configuration for my system - core 2 duo processor E6750 2.66 GHz, Asus P5N32-E SLI nForce® 680i SLI motherboard, 4 gb ram, multiple Geforce 7 or 8 series 256 mb video cards (each card with two dvi ports), 600 watt SLI ready power supply, 500gb harddrive. The total cost estimated was within $1300. So, from your suggestions, it looks like the Quadro cards with four dvi ports works better for trading needs. I will look for a Nvidia Quadro NVS pci-x16 card. Is it better for it to be SLI ready, so that in future I can add one more Quadro card? I found this PNY Quadro4 NVS 440 card for $409.99 in newegg, but it doesn't appear to be SLI ready http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133164 When I did a search in newegg.com, I found the following quadro cards which were SLI ready and PCI express. But they were like quadro FX1400. I found this for $349.99 "PNY VCQFX1400-PCIE-PB Quadro FX1400 128MB 256-bit DDR PCI Express x16 SLI Supported Video Card " http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc= Do you think this Quadro card works for four monitors. Thanks DisciplineTrader
SLI is technology that's great for gamers, but no traders. You won't need it. Essentially, is like taking a single gpu and making it a dual gpu, so there is super fast graphics processing. PCI-X slots, two or more, is what you need on the Motherboard. Also, Windows XP Pro, and you are good to go.
1. Forget the concept of "SLI" for trading.... overkill and completely unnecessary. That's high powered graphics for gaming and CAD/CAM. Nvidia's "Quadro FX" line is this type of card. 2. For trading, you want cards from the "Quadro NVS" line.... 440/285/280PCI. If your mobo will allow, you'll save some money by avoiding the 440 (quad). You can meet your needs with 285 and 280PCI cards. (Any combination of Quadro NVS cards which your mobo has slots for will work for you.) Buying them used off of eBay will save you some $$ too.... just be sure you get the cables that go with the card. Many eBay sellers split the cable and card into 2 sales to try to get more money. Used is OK... workstation video cards rarely fail. The term "Quadro" as used in the name of Nvidia cards has nothing to do with the number "4".
I agree. 3 yrs ago i bought a g450 on ebay for $30 or $40 ...works great. no problems running 2 monitors...then i have a $10 card running the 3rd screen. giddyup!
A few years back, I used Matrox Millennium G series cards and they were fine. However, they were so slow that they wouldn't run my Marine Aquarium screen saver. I switched to Nvidia Quadro NVS... they're considerably faster, so I'd recommend them over Matrox. (However, the G450 is really cheap now... You can get them many places for $5. I've even seen them go for $.99)
Is the G450 slowness only on your screensaver, or on actual trading activies? Will it display charts slow, display quotes slow? G450 has a 16M and a 32M version cards. which one I should go?
The screen saver required a bit of graphics power... more than the G450 has. There was no slowdown from normal quote and chart displays with the Matrox. Any amount of RAM is OK for trading. Before I had the Matrox cards, I used ATIs on a W98 rig. They had only 4MB RAM and were fine for trading.
If you need speed (and most traders do), forget about Matrox cards, they're CPU hogs. I have an 8 19" monitor setup, currently split between 2 systems but I used to run 6 monitors on one. For 6 monitors I'd recommend any fast mainboard with 3 PCI-e slots and 3 "Club 3D 7300 GT Silent" Nvidia PCI-e cards, they're about $70 each, have 2 DVI outputs each, passive cooling (so they're noiseless) and run fast and stable, the perfect solution for traders IMHO.
I have about 10 L2's, 10 T&S and about 15 charts, news feed(s), some riskware and some additional software. I could perfectly do my thing with 4 19" monitors (or maybe 3 22" monitors), but that would mean I'd have to do lots of switching between L2's and chart's and I hate that Nowaday's 19" TFT's are pretty cheap anyway ...