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I am thinking about going with a customized Dell XPS M1730 with the following components. A buddy of mine has a 20% business discount with Dell so the total purchase will run me about $2650. What do you think.
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T8300 (2.4GHz/800Mhz FSB/3MB cache)
Genuine Windows® XP Professional
4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
RAID Performance: 400GB (2x200GB) 7200RPM Free Fall Sensor
CD / DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW Drive)
NVIDIA®SLI™Dual GeForce®8700MGT with 512MB GDDR3 Memory
Intel® PRO/Wireless 4965a/g/n Mini Card
85 WHr Lithium Ion Battery (9-cell)
High Definition Audio 2.0
My Software & Accessories
McAfee SecurityCenter 15-months
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My cut fwiw.
Most of the XPSP3 upgrade problems came from HP computers because of the way they put the os image on - HP was once a great company. Dells are ok but many are built to a price spec so its not as good as you could do building it yourself.
On Jay bird's spec.
1. I've got an 8500 but I'd get an 8400 because they are the sweet spot for price/performance (but the shop was out of 8400, and when I want to upgrade I upgrade NOW).
2. Yes to XP. No to Vista. If you get 4G of ram you can put a nice big ram disk in there and run your trading apps on the ramdisk (I run TWS, SierraChart and Firefox on the ramdisk for max speed and minimum disk wear (max reliability)).
3. They put 667M ram in! Yetch! 800M is very cheap now and 1000+ if you want real performance. Why get a good new core2 and be cheap or ram (unless you're dell and building to a price spec).
4. Why bother with raid for a trading machine but maybe you have some very specific needs.
5. That graphics card is way overspec except for gamers. If you want to trade then a 7300GS with passive cooling will be much cheaper and do base games (7900 for more gaming).
6. Don't use wireless anywhere in your trading - it adds latency in a big way. Fixed wire connections to your trading machine.
7. McAfee = rubbish; so's Norton except for Ghost. But if its free. If I was paying I'd get Nod32. If not AVG is pretty reasonable as is Comodo for firewalls.
So, drop the raid and you can probably save enough to upspec your processor to an 8400 and get 800Mhz ram. Drop the expensive fast graphics card if you're not a hard core gamer and you can reduce noise, save the environment and your pocket all in one step.
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