Financial Trading 4-8 Monitor Build

[zero koopa]

1. budget - open ended. I know this wont be cheap and I hope not to go over 5K

I would like to build the steadiest and best or learn where to purchase a computer like the ones used in trading floors of NASDAQ or other financial institutions. .

2. what items you need the budget to cover (see lists below)

The entire build from the ground up. Ready and running.

3. any particular specs you've already decided upon (e.g. a certain CPU or GPU, or a certain amount of RAM)

Any that would be able to run this type of machine. Faster the better but open to options.

4. what types of uses you want to use the computer for

This PC will be used for work in a financial firm. So checking the market, running analysis, email, etc but on multiple monitors. I want it capable of running inDesign but that wont be a top priority.

This is for my boss and I would like to not really be on the hook if something goes wrong at 2 am with his new PC, however I feel confident that I could build it after building multiple gaming rigs. I have tired to look up places to where to buy these types of rigs but came up short. Do you know any sources?

Core items
1. Power supply - No Preference

2. Case - A quiet case with grommets for easy cable routing, I like my NZXT but that may look quite odd in a professional environment as it glows bright pink

3. Motherboard -No Preference

4. CPU - Intel preferred

5. Heatsink/fan for the CPU - could I get away with the stock heat-sink?

6. Memory - at least 8. I do not want this to lag. This is for my boss so my butts on the line

7. Primary hard drive - SSD for boot

8. Primary optical drive - quiet and reliable

9. Video card (unless you?re using onboard video) how many will it take to run 4-8 monitors?

10. Monitor(s) ? see xtknight?s LCD thread 4-8 monitors for work

11. Mouse/keyboard - basic if any

12. Operating System - I like windows 7 pro but Im not sure if win 8 or later will be better choice

13. Snacks - sour patch kids, duh.

Optional stuff

1. Additional hard drive(s) - a 1 TB drive.

3. Memory-card reader - if it works well and isn't buggy yes otherwise maybe a case with one

6. Audio card - on board sound should be fine

7. Video-capture card and/or TV-tuner card - he has a tv already, shouldnt need this but if the video cards are capable of doing so it wouldn't hurt

13. Uninterrupted Power Supply and/or surge suppressor - yes, do not want to lose work on this bad boy

14. Pizza - Sauerkraut and Canadian bacon.


I would appreciate having an understanding of what CPU would be best. Not sure the benefit of xeon processors vs i7 vs i5 etc. I've only built gaming rigs. You guys have never steered me wrong and all help is totally welcome. Thanks in advance!

 

[mfenn]

Trading PC for financial firm and you don't want to get woken up at 2am? That sounds like you want a prebuilt system, preferably from a big OEM. Luckily the financial services industry is big, so OEMs make products just for you.

Dell T3610 - $5750:
- Xeon E5-1620
- 32GB DDR3
- Dual NVS 510 cards (4 displays each)
- 512 GB SSD
- Eight P2414H monitors

That's before discounts (the monitors are $2400 by themselves). Call them up and they should give you more of a discount. If they won't deal, then you can always mention that the monitors are cheaper from Newegg and threaten to buy them there (and of course go through with it).

For the stands, it depends on your boss's workspace, but you can get a variety of different ones on Amazon. These desk clamp stands work great if you have a suitable desk.

 

[nsafreak]

^^ Strongly agree with mfenn on this one. One of the people that I'll never build a PC for is my boss for his workplace. I don't want to be stuck in the situation where a piece of business critical equipment goes down and I'm the primary person responsible as yet another thing I do for my job. Go with a Dell/HP/etc. major OEM and let their support deal with any issues that may pop up.

 

[Burpo]

I found 8 of the Dell monitors with 2 stands for 4 monitors (see below pic) for $2000 total..

mfenn's Dell T3610 w/dual cards is the ticket tho..

 

[piasabird]

There are websites and companies on the Internet dedicated to these kinds of systems. Trading data is not that computer intense, but using say 8 or 10 monitors takes a special kind of a system.

I never purchased anything from this location.
http://www.falcontradingsystems.com/stock-trading-computers-John-Netto.html

I remember some motherboards designed for bit coin mining had like 8 video card slots.

I think the key to monitor arrays is the more you buy the better the discount should be. Maybe the high-end 6 and 8 core processors are coming down in price.

 

[piasabird]

Interesting comparison of real video on multiple monitor test??

http://www.tradingcomputers.com/predator.html

This is only a valid test if you use multiple monitors for watching video using all the monitors as one screen.

They are using a 6 core processor with DDR4 motherboard and a SSD.

 

[Cerb]

Another +1 to mfenn's. I would personally add that IME, the P2414H and U2414H* are some of the best screens I've ever seen, when it comes to keeping eye fatigue at bay. Set them to the text preset, adjust the brightness, and you will be quite pleased. Also, buying the monitors from Dell directly, you can swap them out for what would otherwise be minor issues, like the backlight hue of one of them not matching the rest. While it would take too long to get into why, if a WLED backlight is off by a bit, (these recent Dells w/ LG IPS panels seem to be neutral to yellowish), there's no amount of color adjustments you can do to make up for it, and the offending monitor's tint usually would not even be noticeable if used a single display.

* The U2414H and P2414H seems to use pretty much the same panel, but that the U2414H's does Adobe RGB well, while the P2414H's is stuck at sRGB. Not an issue, except for those doing professional graphics work.

 

[Gunbuster]

Screw 8 monitors. You need two Seiki 39" 4k TV's! Perfect for a big desktop setup.

 

[Wall Street]

I live this. The computers which my major international bank use are nothing special. We have Dell PCs with i5's with 4 GB RAM (just upgraded from Windows XP last year) and Intel SSDs. The screens are 19" 1280x1024 cheap Dells. Widescreen monitors are useless in this application because the Bloomberg just doesn't scale that way. Behind the monitors are these pipes which have VESA mounts bolted to them and look something like this.

Don't overestimate the cost of putting all of this together. Traders need screen space, but don't really need good contrast ratios or anything like that. Also, for most trading desks, the calculating horsepower and the storage is not actually in the box under the desk.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that one of the main costs is that the internal Intel graphics adapter will drive two displays, but you will need a video card to go above that. Sorry, but I have no idea what my firm uses to drive the additional outputs, but I think that they are just low end HD5450s and the like.

 

[zero koopa]

Would you really need 32gigs of ram?

And would you say that Dell is the way to go for purchasing a PC like this?

 

[nsafreak]

I kind of doubt that he'll need 32 gigs of RAM, although that depends upon the how many programs he's running. What's his typical RAM usage now? I would say 16 GB should likely be enough, 8 GB might be on the low side but possible, but nothing below 8 GB. Insofar as which company to go with I would say a major OEM would be the way to go that has a good support contract option. Dell has really good support contract, not so sure about HP & Lenovo. But you do not want to be the point of contact for a business critical system.

 

[mfenn]

Would you really need 32gigs of ram?

Perhaps not, I went on the safe side considering your budget. 16GB would most likely work fine, but might need an upgrade later if he gets heavy into the design work that you mentioned.

And would you say that Dell is the way to go for purchasing a PC like this?

If not Dell, then another Tier 1 OEM like HP or Lenovo. I personally prefer Dell because I have experience with their workstations and they've always been solid. If your place is an HP or Lenovo shop, then you can definitely get an equivalent machine from them and leverage your existing familiarity with their support organizations.

I absolutely echo nsafreak's point that you do not want to be taking on the system integrator role for this one. Buy a machine with a support contract that does not put you in a tough position. You don't want to be the hero here, you just want to get the boss what he needs to do his job with minimum fuss.

 

[piasabird]

I have an older 18.5" dell monitor that only has a SVGA port. However it is a HD Monitor. I was surprised how well it works and how little eye strain it causes for such a small monitor. My wife used it a lot for Scottrade software until I built a new computer with a 2500K CPU which we used with the built in IGP and a Samsung 40" monitor. When she saw how good it worked with the Samsung TV, I didn't have a heart to take the computer back from her. Life Rocks.

 

[Cerb]

Eye strain is mostly going to be a function of coating and backlight, assuming an analog connection isn't causing some issues. It has taken quite awhile for WLED backlit monitors, at reasonable costs, anyway, to reach the overall quality that many CCFL ones had 8-10 years ago. Old NEC, Sony, Samsung, Dell (often rebranded/tweaked Samsungs, from those days), and even CTX (remember them?) IPS and PVA monitors are very easy on the eyes, compared to many above-average WLED ones of today (of course, today a good 24" is $175-250, when then a decent 18" might have been as much as $800 ). IME, Dell, HP, and BenQ seem to be doing well, brand-wide, at making good ones to look at for long periods. Also, today, TN have good enough angles and contrast to not be a problem; just that the nicer monitors tend not to be TN.

 

[zero koopa]

Ok so now what he has decided on is a 6 monitor build. Two monitors will be used for data basing, 2 will be for internet research, one for email, and one for gameification. Not much inDesign use

My questions:
What card would I use to get 6 monitors? Would I still use dual NVS 510 cards and and leave two spots open?

Instead of the 512 SSD should I get a 256 or 128 ssd boot and then have a 500-1 tb 3.5 storage drive?

Is the Xeon E5-1620 the best buy for the processors? Are the other options too slow or expensive?

Does this seem decent?
- Xeon E5-1620
- 16GB DDR3
- Dual NVS 510 cards (4 displays each)
- 256 GB SSD and 1 GB 3.5 Storage
- Six P2414H monitors

 

[Gunbuster]

Why are you trying to rig up a bunch of screens when there are cheap 4k tv's?

 

[mfenn]

Why are you trying to rig up a bunch of screens when there are cheap 4k tv's?

Because cheap 4K TV's can't do 4:4:4 chroma sampling at 60 FPS.

 

[mfenn]

Ok so now what he has decided on is a 6 monitor build. Two monitors will be used for data basing, 2 will be for internet research, one for email, and one for gameification. Not much inDesign use

My questions:
What card would I use to get 6 monitors? Would I still use dual NVS 510 cards and and leave two spots open?

Yep, that's the best option. Keep in mind that the NVS 510's are pure professional cards, they are not for intensive 3D gaming.

Instead of the 512 SSD should I get a 256 or 128 ssd boot and then have a 500-1 tb 3.5 storage drive?

I'd stick with the single SSD (whichever capacity) unless you need > 512 GB of local storage. In an office environment, I would expect bulk storage to be on a NAS, and the local drive need's to be fairly minimal.

Is the Xeon E5-1620 the best buy for the processors? Are the other options too slow or expensive?

None of the processor options are what I would call slow, but the E5-1620 is what I would consider to be in the sweet spot of price/performance.

 

[zero koopa]

Well I am going to go ahead and make the order. Thanks so much!!! Wish it were mine.

 

[Gunbuster]

Because cheap 4K TV's can't do 4:4:4 chroma sampling at 60 FPS.

Financial trading, email, and indesign require 4:4:4 chroma 60hz why?

Enjoy the unnecessary rats nest of power, video cables, and stands.

 

[inachu]

If you use custom apps then yeah go for the 32 gig but if you just use web browser interfaces like this guy: https://twitter.com/super_trades

Then just go for 16 gigs of ram. This way you can stream to one screen video financial tv service like cnbc. I setup one system for the Bouvier family and they love it. But that was back when AOL was all the rage. #lol

 

[Billb2]

http://www.digitaltigers.com/zenview-atlas-eight-screen-lcd-monitors.asp?type=pro

And if I were you, I'd stay as far away from this boondoggle as I could.........

 

[mfenn]

Financial trading, email, and indesign require 4:4:4 chroma 60hz why?

Enjoy the unnecessary rats nest of power, video cables, and stands.

Have you ever used a desktop that was rendering at 30 FPS? It's pretty painful.

As for the chroma sampling, movies and games (basically content with lots of movement and few areas of high contast) are the best places for cutting corners on chroma sampling because you don't notice it much. With 4:2:0, static content and text look really awful. If you're trying to do color-sensitive design work on 4:2:0, then your results are going to stray quite far from what you see on the screen.

Notice the severe chroma aberrations here:

 

[Cerb]

Some 10-15ft IEC and video cables, and velcro straps, will 100% tale care of any, "rats nest," problems. Some stands may have provisions for routing cables inside of them, too.

 

[mfenn]

Some 10-15ft IEC and video cables, and velcro straps, will 100% tale care of any, "rats nest," problems. Some stands may have provisions for routing cables inside of them, too.

:thumbsup: Agree. I meant to put that as well. Doing a good cable job isn't that hard with the right supplies and a little patience.