I want to get a new computer for securities trading. It will be a multimonitor (probably 3 19" flat panels) setup. My question is....should I get something like a P4 3.0, a Xeon, or maybe even a dual Xeon. The computer will be running a trading platform, a complex charting program with numerous windows and mathematical computations running simultaneously. Also, what is the right amount of memory. Is 1GB enough? 2? 4? If more details would help in getting an answer, kindly let me know what kinds of info you need. Money is a consideration. I would like best cost/performance mix. Thanks in advance.
You could do it all easily with any single processor, and any vendor. Of course you want speed, then the more Xeons, the better. But not required for charts / graphs / etc. I would have someone configure one of the new multi view display cards for you, since that's the core of your interest. Right now Matrox and 3DLabs have some great new multi-view setups for 4 or more displays. You could get by with less than 1Gb of memory. If you want to do alot of things, or if you are the type of person who doesn't close their programs, get alot of extra memory. 4Gb? 4Gb is the limit on most modern 32bit operating systems. I plug in 4Gb and only 3.8 is utilized. I would get a P4 3.0 with 1Gb of memory and any 'good' multi-view dislpay setup, which is actually a pair of cards that plug into the mainboards AGP & PCI slots. Maybe multiview is not what you want? http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/qid/home.cfm
