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Nick |
I had my main computer crash in a way that made recovery not worth the trouble in December 2006. I had seen tradingcomputers mentioned in Bline a couple of times and posted a request for up to date info. Scooter posted he had recently had a good experience with tradingcomputers and so I went to their website and started searching their models.
I wanted two things in a new box. First, I wanted a fast powerful stable machine that would last me awhile and handle all my applications easily. Second, I wanted to buy from someone with whom I could communicate on an ongoing basis.
The first machine I considered was the 900N. This was a Pentium D model listed at about $1735. I had a few questions so I called tradingcomputers and talked to a Phil Harris. He answered on about three rings. He turned out to be a principal in the company. He was smart, attentive and he either had the answers to my questions or he got them right away from someone sitting next to him. So far, so good. After a brief discussion he mentioned that for a few hundred more dollars I could get a Core2Duo machine. At the time I knew nothing about Core2Duo, so it didn’t register. After extensive research, I discovered the Pentium series was about to be discontinued by Intel, that the so called Netburst architecture in the Pentium series was generally considered a failure and that everybody in geekdom was testing Core2Duo boxes. The consensus was that Core2Duo had solved all the problems with Pentium and that further, the consensus was that Core2Duo had also smoked the Athlon chips to become the best cpu available.
The entry level Core2Duo box was a 2200N for about $2100. The entry level box had a E6400 C2D chip, one PCIE slot and one PCI slot. Right away, I knew I didn’t want a PCI video card. Also the Nvidia cards offered were lower end, so I looked further.
The next level was the Falcon F18. Tradingcomputers lists themselves as distributors for Falcon, but in checking with Phil I found out they also built the Falcon boxes in their Laramie Wyoming facility.
http://www.tradingcomputers.com/TC_F18.html
This box features the C2D chip, Thermaltake Armor case with 250 MM side fan, multiple PCIE slots and EVGA 7300GS video cards.
This box had the features I wanted. The entry level was $2330. I upgraded to the E6600 C2D cpu for plus $109. The E6600 has 4 MB of L2 cache compared to 2MB on the E6400 so the plus $109 was an easy call. The entry level F18 has a DVD-ROM, a DVD burner and a floppy drive. For plus $28 I upgraded to the Lightscribe DVD burner. Lightscribe allows burning labels into special DVD or CD discs. Sounded cool, so why not?
I also decided to upgrade the stock 2MB of 667mhz RAM to 800 mhz RAM for plus $75.
My total with shipping came to $2585.
The tradingcomputer site advertises that they will ship between 6-9 business days from the order date. Mine went out on the sixth day. It arrived in good condition thanks to being packed in double cartons. The box was in the original Thermaltake box with styrofoam clamshells and then the whole Thermaltake box was wrapped in airpocket plastic and packed in a bigger box. This is the kind of overkill I live for!
The box worked great from installation. Of course it’s much faster than my previous Pent 4 box. The C2D provides additional horsepower, however, which you see if you run something that is CPU intensive and then do other work at the same time. I had a ZA AV scan going and this uses up to 50% CPU. Normally I’d leave the box alone until the scan was done, but with the C2D I decided to open everything: TWS, Ensign, Firefox, Thunderbird and Buttontrader and try to work. All the apps worked just as fast as if no scan was going. Under normal usage during trading hours, the CPU usage runs between 2% and 10%. One example of the speed: On my Pent 4 box when Ensign autoopened TWS, it took about thirty seconds to get a green data light. When the Pent 4 box failed and I went to my Pent 3 backup box, the same process took 70 seconds. With the F18 it takes under 10 seconds. Of course you get used to the speed real fast and then you realize in six months there’ll be something faster yet. So then, you buy another box! No problemo.
During my research on the boxes, I sent around fifty emails to Phil Harris. Typically I’d hear back from him in five minutes on week days. He often answered on Saturdays as well. I figured if he could handle that kind of torment, he must be pretty serious about service. I haven’t needed any help yet. The box has been running beautifully for 3-4 weeks now. I’m pleased with my investment and I’d recommend anybody who is looking for a serious trading computer give Phil a call and check it out. Probably time and money well spent.
Ps. When I’d had my box running for a bit I checked the listed hardware
and found I’d gotten a free upgrade to EVGA 7600GS video cards.
Last updated 01/27/2007