Hi All, I'm thinking about putting together the following system for trading purposes. In general, I'm looking for a 4 monitor system that is quiet, reliable, and offers top performance so that it won't become obsolete as quickly. Where possible, I've selected the top rated components as rated by PCWorld/CNET/ZdNet. I do have some questions here and there though. Any suggestions or comments you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! -- ITZ Here's the list: Processor: Athlon XP 2200 Cooling: Quietest CPU Cooling Fan available (is there one brand I should focuson here?) Motherboard: Soyo KT333 Dragon Ultra Memory: 512MB of DDR333 RAM (what speed or type of RAM in particular should I specify here?) Case: Cooler Master ATC-101 (is this the quietest mid-tower case available?) Power Supply: 400 watt Hard Drive: Western Digital 80 GB drive, WD800JB CD-RW Drive: Pacific Digital Mach 48 CD-RW Rewritable DVD Drive: HP DVD Writer DVD200i Floppy: Brand Name 3.5" Drive Video Card: Matrox G200 MMS Quad Monitor: Compaq TFT 7020, (Quantity: 4 monitors total) Flat Panel Desk Mount: ErgoTron DeskStand 100 Series Quad-Monitor Configuration Sound Card: Basic sound board Speakers: A 2-way name-brand shilded speakers Networking: (no extra card needed, as it's built into the Soyo KT333 motherboard) Keyboard and Mouse: Logitech Freedom Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Operating System: Windows XP Pro Warranty: 3 Year Parts, Labor, and In-House Service Power Backup: A UPS with enough capacity to keep the computer system described above + router + cable modem running for 20 minutes. (How big a UPS do I need for all this?)
Get a Promise two channel RAID card and a second hard drive so you can mirror your drives. With that setup you can lose a drive but still keep your system.
look into how fast your hard drive is. Most drives are bigger than most people will use, but most are also pretty slow. If you are going to spend the kind of money it looks like you are spending, then you might as well have a fast disk system. Also, if this is going to be purely a trading/business pc, then you should at least consider windows 2000 pro instead of XP since it has been around longer and has already been through several service packs. 2000 is still the main stream, and you would be suprised how much NT 4.0 is still out there. Also 2000 will give you slightly better performance than XP on software that was not written specifically for XP, which is most software out there.
Have you used any of their products? Are their case fans that much quieter? My fans aren't particularlly loud, but there are five of them. I'm still nevous about gluing anything to my CPU, so that will have to wait for later. Are CPU and GPU fans very loud as compared with a case fan? Will I get the bulk of my improvement there or with the case fans?
inthezone, If you want a really quiet PC don't forget the hard drive noise factor. After a while HDs start to make high pitched noises, that personally, annoy the hell out of me. I guess I have good hearing or something. By way of example, if you're the type who can hear the TV on in the front room even when it is muted, consider a quiet hard drive. I just got one of the Maxtor quiet drives. They are very nice. The new IBM drives seem quite too. A few other comments: 1) I have heard the vantec stealth fans are nice 2) If you want a really cool PC short of a water cooling system, then think about an aluminum case. Better conductivity means lower heat levels. I got a Lian Li case myself. As a added plus, they look very sexy.
Even though a network card is built-in, you might think about putting a PCI network card in the system depending on who you trade through. I know IB is a bit particular with the java scripting and network cards.
Sorry about the typo in previous post. Intel CPU is cooler, and it does NOT cost you much more. I am also interested in the Quiet PC. The PC I have has 3 case fans, 2 power supply fans and 1 CPU fan. I think the fans are the source of noise. Does the products from QuietPC.com really help?
I don't have a quiet pc fan but will get them on my next pc as my dell workstation is very loud. Read the reviews and testimonals on the site, people seem pretty impressed. They have a cover for the hard drive to make that quieter as well.