Thanks for the tip, maybe it will just be easier to build my own computer if I want to run quad monitors? Do you save any money these days doing that? I built one about 10 yrs ago and remembered saving some decent cash, but nowadays it seems that might not be possible.
If you have higher upgrades you can save some money BIY rather than purchasing upgrades through the vendor. A decent compromise is to buy a "base" workstation unit from Dell or HP with the CPU you want, then do your own HDD and RAM upgrades. If you buy from Dell's Outlet, you won't be able to save any money BIY on SOME units.. on others the CPU, RAM and HDD are still overpriced.
Ok thanks for the info, I'll look into that. I'm an apple guy, I haven't used a PC for home use in about 8 years, what is a good processor for running Lightspeed and 4 monitors, just a trading computer nothing else. 4GB of ram good or should I go 8gb?
Sorry, I meant at home all I use is an Apple, but on our desk we use Dell's. I'm looking to get a similar setup at home as we do in the office.
Suggest you check Dell's Outlet for Precision T3500 with W3520 Xeon CPU on X58 mobo. They have one for $859 with XP/Vista, and for $919 with W7. Even if you don't buy one of those, they're a good reference for comparative value.
The Optiplex980 line in the US starts at $600 and you can configure it for cheaper than the T3500 afaik...
Of course it's "cheaper"... MUCH cheaper... has "onboard video" chip, as do all cheap machines, but as it has 2, PCIEx16 slots, it will probably run 4 monitors. However if bought off of Dell retail site and configured similarly to the T3500 in Outlet, the OptiPlex would cost $200+ more.... besides being a much lesser machine.
Easy or not: it is not too difficult if you are familiar with a basic PC's operation. Save money? I am not sure about that. It is economy of scale. Someone who builds a custom car from individual parts may end up paying more than buying one built in assembly operations. I built my own last week because of my need. I am fed up that I couldn't find one box that has more than 2 available PCIe buses. With my new PC I am hoping to have 5 video cards to drive 10 monitors. Rough estimate: you figure out if you can save money from your source: CPU, $200 - $300 MoBo, $200 - $300 Memory, $200 - $300 (12 GB base) Chasis, $50 - $100 Power supply, $100 - $200 Harddrive, $50 - $100 DVDRW drive, $30 - $70 Windows OS, $100 - $200 Plus your video cards. There might be a video on the MoBo. But at any rate you need to add on your video cards in order to support multiple monitors whether you buy the box from HP or Dell or Gateway, etc.. If you factor in the rate of your own time (about 4 hours to 8 hours) it would definitely not be cheaper. But if this is your hobbie and you enjoy the process, it can be very satisfying. I owned an Apple II+ in college, 1982. I ditched Apple every since because they decided to take a "closed system" approach compare to other computers that are IBM BIOS DOS based where you can easily find add-on hardware and software. I think that was the key to their demise (in the late 80's and 90's). Until their revival with iMac/iPod etc..
::With my new PC I am hoping to have 5 video cards to drive 10 ::monitors. I understand the wish for 10 monitors, but why 5 video cards? Wait a month. PowerColor 5770 EyeFinity 5. One slot, one card (1gb RAM).... 5 monitors in parallel. Two slots, two cards.... 10 monitors To be priced only a little higher than normal 5770. I will go for those, as it allows me quite a lot of expansion - otherwise i would go for a normal 5770 (3 monitors allowed). I am custom building my computers for ages now - problem is I can not find decent ones anyhere. Dell stuff is crap. I would go with (note that this stuff is not available - it is my plan for a replacement for the stuff I have now, which is 3years old, and I want the new stuff to last 3 years, too): * An AMD 890 based motherboard. Still waiting for one to come out that has business class guarantee (avaialbel 24 months). Otherwise there is one that is micro-atx and can drive two cards * An AMD Phenom II X6 - six cores and turbo if only 1-2 are needed. * 16gb ram maximum. I possibly will go for that. I do a lot of other stuff on the side with that machine. * 4 hard discs in a RAID 10 - you dont need that (or the RAM), but i want one computer I can travel with that can also virtualize half a dozen machines for training. This is why the big RAM and Discs. Otherwise i owuld go with decent disc and as much ram as needed Note that I am trading from a virtual machine on a server of mine on a data center - Windows 7 supports multi monitor remote desktop and it means I have to worry less about latency and... well... power and internet My trading system is basically a 4gb (possbily soon more) virtual server having 2 cpu cores exposed for trading. I may upgrade "as needed". Note that I do not advocate using a virtual server unless you know the host is not overloaded - in this case I happen to know the owner of the machine, which is me, so I know I get all the resources i need.