I am in the market for a new trading pc and wanted some advice on video cards for setting up eight 22" monitors. I was looking into trading computers.com for my new pc, does anyone have any advice with this company? Also, what wold be the best video cards for this setup. Thanx
Are you looking for 1 card for all 8 monitors? Or 2 quad cards (each for 4 monitors)? Or 4 dual cards?
Tradingcomputers.com is almost always WAAAAAYYYYY overpriced. Your solution starts with the motherboard. Get an X58 (if Intel CPU) or an 890 (if AMD)... one which has 4, PCIEx16 slots + enough PCI slots to run any legacy devices you have, if any. As for video cards, none better for trading than Nvidia Quadro NVS 295... about $50 or less on eBay including DVI-DP adapters.
What is the difference between an x58 & a intel i7-970? I am not familiar with computer language, can u please tell me what pciex16 slots mean? what are pci slots and legacy devices? Also, if u think tradingcomputers.com is overprices where do u suggest I shop for this tower that I will need to support 8-22" monitors...thank you
Core i7-970 is the second six-core desktop CPU planned by Intel. The first six-core Intel processor for consumer market, Core i7-980X, was launched in March of this year. The 980X was an Extreme Edition with 3.33 GHz core frequency and unlocked clock multiplier, and, like all Intel Extreme CPUs, it was not cheap (read: very expensive). Similar to the i7-980X, the i7-970 model is also going to have six cores, 1.5 MB of L2 memory (256 KB per core), 12 MB of L3 memory, and include HyperThreading and Turbo Boost technologies. The differences of this CPU from the i7-980X are locked clock multiplier and lower core frequency - 3.2 GHz. The i7-970 microprocessor will be offered in tray and box versions, with tray part number AT80613005490AD and box part BX80613I7970. Production S-spec number for the CPU is SLBVF, and qualification sample has QDF number Q4EZ. Both production parts and qualification samples have the same B1 stepping. Picture and CPU-Z screenshot of the Q4EZ sample were posted a week ago in this forum. A month ago TweakPC.de ran various benchmarks on the CPU, and compared it with Core i7-980X and AMD Phenom II X6 1090T CPUs: TweakPC benchmarks As expected, the i7-970 was a bit slower than the 980X in majority of the benchmarks, but faster than the Phenom II X6 1090T. Official price for the Core i7-970 CPU is not known yet, although many hardware news sites reported $562 introduction price. Qualification samples of this CPU are available on eBay, so if you have $800 to spare and if you do not want to wait for possibly cheaper production part, you can buy a sample from this auction. At this time only one motherboard manufacturer posted support information for the CPU. A few days ago MSI website was updated to add support for the Core i7-970 to X58 Platinum and X58 Platinum SLI motherboards. The i7-970 microprocessor is scheduled for the third quarter, but exact date is not known. We think it could be launched in July, and there are a few reasons for this. First, from the past experience we know that MSI support information for forthcoming Intel processors is posted reasonably close to their launch date. Second, recent Product Change Notification 110118-00 (PDF file) from Intel refers to a change in Core i7-970 boxed processor's fan design. According to the PCN, clients will receive boxed processors with the new fan no later than July 5, i.e. the stores will start stocking the CPUs before the second half of July. And the last reason - information about this model was posted on a website of one of Intel distributors, and they don't post information like that well in advance. thic is some details information of i7-970
Oh boy... Okay... x58 is an Intel chip designed to connect Intel processors with Intel QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) interface to peripheral devices. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_X58 i7-970 is one of the processor models supported by x58. And so is i7-930 (the one I have). 970 is a bit faster. PCIEX16 is the bus interface specification. It is probably the most popular standard currently. Your video cards have to match with the bus spec. Looks like you are buying the video cards brand new and not having some existing video cards that you want to keep using. If so, most of the video cards now pretty much run on PCIEX16 bus only. PCI bus is an older bus standard. - Thus considered "legacy".
Not sure if you want to build a computer yourself. But you can pay a tech guy to build one for you with your own specifications. Here are my suggestions. 5 months ago I built 2 boxes based on i7-930 processor. You can find the details in my other post: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=195662 With details on the chassis, disk drive, DVD drive, power supply, etc.. But... the motherboard I chose - ASUS P6T - only support 3 x PCIeX16 slots. I now kind of regret. If you want to support 8 monitors with 4 x PCIeX16 dual cards, you should have a motherboard that supports 4+ PCIeX16 slots. Thanks to killthesunshine, here is one motherboard that fits the bill: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9 http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/rampage-iii-extreme-big-bang-xpower-x58a-ud9,2688-6.html It support 7 x PCIeX16 slots. You can hook up 14 monitors with that based on dual cards. The video cards that I use are PNY Technologies 8400 GS, passive cooling, something like this, about $50 each: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133316 It's a dual card. Supports 2 monitors each via the DVI interface. You get 4 of those, you can support 8 monitors. If you buy a ready-to-use computer from a high-end site, it will probably cost close to $3000. (They will probably sell someing like $4500 but include the 4 monitor and a stand or something.) If you buy the parts, the total will probably be around $1200-$1300. And you pay a guy $200 to put everything together. (Fry's would do mine for $100 if I remember correctly.)
I would like to know if you think there is any major differences when intra-day trading from using windows 7 os vs. having windows xp installed? I plan on trading ES with 8 monitors using quotetracker charts in multiple time frames. I was thinking about purchasing the pc from tradingcomputers.com since I dont know much or even know how to build my own pc and dont want to even give it a chance. What do u think about ibuypower.com also? Thank you for your advice
XP will work okay. It is the workhorse version of Windows. But there is one big limitation: It only supports up to 4GB. Nowadays trading computers are likely to have 6GB because prices have come down a bit. I think 6GB is the best but 4GB would probably work in your situation. Windows 7 has a lot of visual candy stuff (Aero). You probably want to turn them off (it's on by default) for trading because they are very distracting when you switch between windows. For your software platform needs, I think an i5 box would do. A ready-made i5 box is only about $500 - $700. But the big problem with those is you probably won't find enough available PCIeX16 slots to house your video cards for 8 monitors. At tradingcomputers.com, looks like F-18 model, sale price $1643, would fit your bill. That's an i7 box. Supporting up to 8 monitors. Another $2000 for 8 monitors + stand. At ibuypower.com, looks like those guys specialize in building game machines. Probably not good for trading. They may or may not be familiar with building something to support 8 monitors.
2 x 4 port video cards with PCIx would be best. http://www.emcworkstations.com/2450firepro.asp - need a Intel x58 motherboard for any i7 processor.