To be honest, I went on Dell's website and selected the features I wanted (8GB3, ITB, i5), and the only selection left had the AMD HD 7470 card as a default selection. There was no interaction with a Dell representative. I think the box/components configuration was on sale. I may just call and get a quote without the advanced graphics card. If I don't need it, then I'd prefer not to pay for it. dhpar, regarding your hard drive comment. As I'll only be using the computer for trading (no games, video, etc), do I actually need additional space beyond 1TB? Or is it the fact that the trading programs will be run from their own dedicated hard drive that boosts the performance?
maybe you do not need the second drive if you do not want to store any data. but my point was that your primary drive should certainly be SSD - if only because of the booting time... it is one of few components that is certainly worth the money!
$820 doesn't sound like a sale price. Saw the newer 3020 with i5 CPU for $549, just yesterday. (Wouldn't buy that either, myself. It too had only 1 x16 slot... probably the same mobo as the 3010.) If the computer is just for trading, you don't need even 1T of storage space. I run mine on 80GB SSDs.
that card is low oem junk. good enough, maybe? consider the amd radeon 7000 series tops out with the 7900 and gddr5 memory. 7400 lol, probably the cheapest pos they could put in there.
Just a few footnotes: that price is Ebay only, retail is closer to $200 - $300 for the junk card. NVS 450 and NVS 510 may be worth a look. The less RAM a card has the more pain he may experience in case of real monitors in Portrait mode, for example. 1080 is not for everybody. Dell Precision laptop may be also worth a look as it is a portable workhorse with nice video and true DisplayPort. Their Precision workstations are dependable and super quiet. HP Z620 workstations served me reliably. Workstation class comps save you time and money in the long run and, if one is patient, can be had on the Bay for next to nothing. It is impossible to go back to anything lesser after you experience them. Cost effective turnkey solutions. Excel 2013 is far superior to any predecessor for financial computations. Booting into terminal server, running Win or Nix may be not so cost effective for a solo trader, although it may be fun and provide bragging rights. The less complexity on the logistics of trading the more time a trader might have for his real life.