Thanks to those who have responded to my questions and to those who have responded to other traders' questions as many replies have provided helpful information. My last question is whether there are some alternative systems or displays I should consider before making an all Dell purchase. My current plan is to get a Dell XPS 410 with Intel Q6600 or E6600 processor Two 22" Dell wide FPDs I'll get the 128 MB Geforce 8300. If it doesn't work out I'll go to eBay to get a Quadro NVS 285. One interesting suggestion was to upgrade to the 8600 and then sell the card on eBay and buy the Quadro. However the cost to upgrade to the 8600 appears to be about the same as it could be sold for on eBay. I'll order with 2 GB of RAM and if I decide for 4, I'll get the other 2 GB from Crucial and save about $100. I gather one can save $ by building it oneself - but for a variety of reasons that route won't work for me. I don't plan to get a barebones system but for comparison purposes, a minimal configuration of the XPS 410 without any monitors and with Vista Home Premium, 2GB 667 Mhz SDRAM, 320GB disk, 1 optical drive CD/DVD Burner; 128 MB GeForce 8300 video card, 2 year in-home service, and a few other items that are included with the system is priced at the Home/Home Office site: with E6600: $1108 with Q6600: $1158 (just $50 more for the quad core!) Free shipping but there is sales tax. Including the 22" FPD with the system adds $210 plus $10 for the basic FPD speakers. A second 22" FPD adds $269 (discounted this week from its normal price of $299). Shifting to the 3 year warranty with the "DellCare Plus" package adds only $34-$37 although you have to get a monitor with the "DellCare Plus package. I've priced other Dell models with similar configurations (Dimension 9200, Vostro, Optiplex, Precision) on the Dell small bus and med/large bus pages) and when comparably configured, the XPS 410 on the Home/Home Office site is priced just a tad less. Any suggestions for comparable desktop systems or FPDs from another vendor that I should consider that would provide good quality at a better price? Any other tips or suggestions are welcome. Thanks for your thoughts. PS - Power Supply is 375 watts
Can you explain why you procuring a quality graphics card is a central plank of your rig configuration? It has no significance to trading whatsoever. Instead, i bet the mobo of that rig is less that optimal. You should concentrate on throughput rather than graphical output in my view.
Don't agree. A $50 better mobo would offer greater utlity...unless he's after a gaming rig too. It's his call though.
The 8300 is the lowest video card offered by Dell for the XPS410 and you can't order it without a video card. I'm only concerned about adequately driving the two monitors for trading. I'm not a gamer. Dell doesn't offer a choice of motherboards. My impression is performance gains would come from better processors (at somewhat higher cost), faster SDRAM, or more memory. I'm actually planning to get the 800mhz SDRAM (vs 667 noted above) for an extra $50. If there's something else that would help, please advise. Can you suggest a vendor with a better mobo in their system with the E6600 or Q6600 or comparable at similar or better price? That's what my query is about - to find out if there is an alternative I should seriously consider. Reminder - I don't want to build my own so I'm looking for a desktop system that is already built when the box arrives at my door. Thanks.
from Dell's home/home office site I did some searching over the weekend and found several systems from other vendors with the Q6600: Acer ASE700, HP m8120, HP a6152n, Gateway GM5478, Gateway X530B. They were similarly configured and all appeared to be lower cost than Dell. An Acer bundle is advertised this week at CompUSA for $1100 including a 22" FPD and wireless color printer. Q6600, 2 GB RAM, 500 GB disk, DVD Burner, Vista Home Premium. I think the included warranty is one year so it would be more for a longer duration warranty. Anyone have some feedback on these models or experience using systems from these vendors for trading? Buy.com lists about 27 different 22" FPD's ranging in price from about $200 to $320 from about 19 co's.
I would urge you to find a computer loaded with XP Professional rather than Vista. Vista really sucks when it comes to speed and compatibility. XP will run faster on half the memory and be 1/10th as annoying. I much prefer AMD processors as they run faster than Intels, but Intel is OK, it's mainly Vista that's the problem, it's pretty but stupid, resource hungry, and slow.
That used to be so, but is just not true with currently available products. For the same price you will get about the same performance, but at the top end Intel is clearly ahead. There is no AMD equivalent of the Intel quads eg Q6600. When the new AMD processors come out, things may or may not change.