It wasn't the build, more getting all my software working and then dealing with getting video cards running. IT was a learning curve also. My second mistake besides the Nvidia was Win Xp pro 64 bit, I had to find a lot of work arounds for device drivers. It's nice to have 4 gigs of RAM I guess. At the moment I am able to run a lot of things at once and it is very stable and fast. Was worth it. I think Dell only went down in the last couple of years or something.
Well, alltogether, to make the rig work, it took you a week. If you have a week to devote to this task then more power to you. The traders that I know who are making coin consistently, do it on a minimal rigs. One has P4 2 gig of Ram and 200 gig drive. The other gets by on 17 inch loptop with a celeron chip. Both trade futures only. As you can see, it is not about the PC. Also, both take in anywhere from a couple hunderd to couple of thosand a day. (the latter being less frequent lately). Do you really think they will waste a week to build the system instead of trading? Where is the benefit? On one side at the end of the week you have a rig that is first class that saved you 1K. At the same time, you just lost 5K not trading for a week. You do the math.
I guess I got lucky as I had everything up and running on a Saturday, and was ready to trade with it Monday. I could have traded the next day. I only have Win XP Pro, Open Office, Adobe for software. Oh ok I admit I added X-Plane, but the kids don't know it as I tell them that computer is for work only. Actually the X-Plane is good practice for an out of currency pilot, so I'll consider that work also.
It is a risk not many profitable traders are willing to take. Simple solution: two identical systems is the answer.
Thanks Tums, for the reply. What you say is correct, however we might have no choice but to take Vista in the future. As, older Windows versions might be withdrawn from the market with no updates or support available.
I have only heard negative things about TigerDirect which have kept me from buying from them. Someone I know bought from them for a while and realized they were charging a monthly unreported fee to his CC. He later found out that they most likely sold his CC info to a 3rd party. I have heard other similar stories involving Tiger. I'll stick to NewEgg.
Two ways I recommend. If you don't have the skills, just buy a Dell Open-Source PC (come with no OS preinstalled) that way you dont' have to pay for Vista or the other bs XP downgrade thing they sell. The cheapest one (vostro 200e) or something like that can be had for $269 w/o monitor (it's core 2 duo, 1g ram, 80 g hd something like that) All of my name brand computers have been dell and the desktop I bought in 2000(!) still RUNS today and runs IB TWS etc. Dell laptop OK, absolutely needs the accident warranty tho b/c its' kinda fragile. if you have ANY decent skill with assembling things, just go the custom built route. it's really not hard For $369 I just built a system Core 2 due e7300, 2gb ram, 160gb HD and XFX motherboard w/ built in geforce 7100 (I don't care about games, but I needed a bultin graphics that had HDMI out so I can use my samsung tv as monitor). Got all the parts from tiger-direct and took about 2-3 hrs to build it all, including installing windows xp dual booted with ubuntu linux. Btw, all my computers run TinyXP. it's a modded XP version than runs much cleaner and faster (for legality reasons, I must mention that you must have purchased a normal version of XP to be able to use TinyXP)
I built my own and ordered from ZipZoomFly.com Good prices, fast shipping. I have also had success with newegg and tigerdirect. Whoever is cheapest