Recommendations for "Working" Computers

[t7riggah]

Hi guys,

I dad needs a computer that he wants me to build with parts that will make his trades go faster. For some of you that might know, it takes alot of CPU and memory and sometimes slows down. What is a good setup to make it so that working with the trading market wont slow you down? AMD or Pentium 4 ? He also has alot of stuff running at the same time, such as notepad or internet explorer and itunes or whatever. He does not need a gaming video card, he would like to have dual or more monitors though for a cheap price.


Thanks, the budget is unknown for now, but anything below 1300 is good, he does not need anything flashy about the case or anything. we have two monitors here so no need for monitors keyboards mouses or speakers, i have an extra 5900 here too. and he has 1 gb ram of DDR 2700

[IntegraGSR]

It sounds like he would benefit from a dual-core Intel or AMD chip, and max the memory out. Probably wouldn't hurt to get some fast hard drives and RAID them together for maximum performance. Check out http://www.newegg.com for parts, it's the #1 place that I shop at.

[t7riggah]

I definitely know that newegg.com is the best, ive done many builds before but i want to get some feedback. So, what kind of motherboard would be good for this job that would not need PCI - E since he doesnt need a gaming video card??

[IntegraGSR]

I would still suggest PCI-E motherboards are they are the latest types, and not all PCI-E video cards are the high end expensive type.

My suggestion would be an ASUS motherboard using PCI-E, such as the ASUS A8N-E (Socket 939) for around $105. You don't need SLI, plenty of expansion room for hard drives and RAM, and it's a reputable brand.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131530

As for the processor, for heavy intensive tasks such as what you are describing, I would suggest the AMD Athlon 64 X2 series. Newegg lists the top end being $630 with the 4800+ Toledo core, though if your budget requires a bit less, the 4600+ Manchester runs at the same clock speed but with half the cache.

I've always been a fan of Corsair and Cruicial RAM (even though I currently use KINGMAX), though others might have suggestions as well for the brand. For the above motherboard you'll want to get standard PC3200, 2GB of it (or more if you plan on buying the 64-bit version of Windows XP, which I believe supports more than 2GB). No need to buy overclockable RAM since it sounds like that won't be happening.

You'll want a quality power supply such asn Enermax or Antec, around 500W. Video card can be a low end GeForce 6200 or Radeon X300 series, which price less than $50. Avoid TurboCache enabled cards if you can since I believe they use RAM as for secondary video memory (correct me if I am wrong). Case isn't that important, buy one that doesn't come with a PSU so you don't waste money on it.

For best performance, get a few SATA hard drives, the sizes you would think he would need, and a solid CD-R/DVD-ROM such as a Lite-On, Sony or Toshiba (plenty of other good brands too, just listing the ones I have personal experience with).

[thefultonhow]

I'd actually skip the RAID -- it sounds like the biggest bottleneck here are the CPU and the memory once programs are running. The hard drives are only used to load the programs, so he'll only get a speedup at that point. For heavy multitasking, I'd go for 2 GB of RAM and of course a dual-core chip.

Are the monitors you have LCDs? What size? If they're not LCDs or are 15" ones, I'd spend more money on two nice LCD monitors, both with DVI, and a dual-DVI video card (although it wouldn't need to be too high-end in terms of power).

[t7riggah]

We have Two 19 in Monitors here, dont worry about those, and dont worry about printers and the such, ok i think thast all need to know for now, i will stick him with my 2 gbs of ram and buy him 2 gbs of ram then we will have 4. then i think im going to have the system files running on SATAII and an extra 200 gb harddrive for his music\media\work. And i will be going with the ASUS A8N Premium and a Dual core chip.

Thanks guys.

[Alaron]

Originally Posted by t7riggah i will stick him with my 2 gbs of ram and buy him 2 gbs of ram then we will have 4.

Unfortunately, the ram you have now is too slow for a new system. If you added it into a system with PC3200, all 4GB would slow down to run at 2700.

Best to stick with just 2GB of new ram that is the correct speed for CPU. This will give you the best performance.

[glc]

Not only that, but you would need 64 bit XP to use all 4 gigs. 2 gigs is plenty. Decent non-gaming dual head PCI-E video cards can be had for $75.