So I'm in the market for a new PC
I just assembled a new PC this week that I'm happy with so here's a breakdown of the parts and a few thoughts.
First, regarding pre-built, that's a fine idea and you can get decent value from the reputable OEMs, however you will be limited to the specific hardware they offer. This is okay in the general case but you can do better (cheaper, faster, higher quality, longer lasting components) building it yourself. There's also the benefit of reusing some of what you already have making the build even cheaper.
My previous computer had an Intel 8700k processor, 64 GB of RAM and a GTX 980ti graphics card from a few years ago and the whole rig was starting to show its age. I program, day, and swing trade stocks, futures, options, and crypto with a few different brokers; I also built and run a crypto trading bot in the background that constantly scans about 20,000 pairs on a dozen exchanges and keeps the charts in a RAM database (Redis). Over time, after adding more features to my bot, more exchanges, etc., the system load was getting so high my box would lock up at times for minutes, especially when crypto was going nuts. The paltry 64 GB of RAM was getting a bit tight too. I say all that to give you an idea of what I needed, your needs may be less or more.
I've been planning on upgrading for probably the last 6 months but finally a week ago I decided to make a move and really go all out with the fastest reasonably priced set of components I could get my hands on. One trip to Microcenter in Marietta, GA later and here's what I ended up with:
CPU: Intel i9 12900k
Price: $549.99
Link: https://www.microcenter.com/product...ga-1700-boxed-processor-heatsink-not-included
I originally wanted to go AMD, either the 5950x or Threadripper workstation CPU but the 12900k came out in the meantime and matches the 5950x in multi-threaded speed while being about 25% faster in single core. See here:
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i9-12900K-vs-AMD-Ryzen-9-5950X/4118vs4086
The problem with getting a Threadripper is it's based on AMD's last gen Zen2 architecture and while at top spec it significantly beats the 12900k on multicore, it is woefully underpowered in single core speed (about the same as my 8700k). AMD has an update coming soon called 3D V-Cache but it's only been demonstrated on one of their mid-tier CPUs and while it may end up competitive with the 12900k in single core speed, it's unlikely to match it in multi-core on the CPU that was demonstrated so it's not worth waiting on. Also Threadripper will eventually move to Zen3 but meanwhile AMD is prepping Zen4 and blah blah blah so in the end I just went with the 12900k since it's here now and it's fast.
Motherboard: MSI Z690 MAG Tomahawk WiFi DDR4 Intel LGA 1700 ATX Motherboard
Price: $279.99
Link: https://www.microcenter.com/product...hawk-wifi-ddr4-intel-lga-1700-atx-motherboard
More often than not when I see a reviewer testing a graphics card, a CPU, or whatnot, this is the motherboard the build is based on. It is stable, has a great BIOS for easy overclocking, is reasonably priced, and has 3 large PCI Express slots on it so you won't have a problem using the 2 graphics cards you already have. A very important detail of this board is it is DDR4, not DDR5 compatible. When Intel released their latest CPUs, part of the fanfare was RAM moving to the latest DDR5 interface. Progress is nice but in this case, DDR5 costs about twice as much as DDR4 and if you need a lot of it, that adds up quickly. The performance difference? About 5%-7% in the benchmarks I've seen. Note that benchmarks are designed to stress the component in question as directly as possible while in general use cases the difference a user notices will be negligible. Obviously I went with DDR4 and saved several hundred dollars. In a few years when I upgrade again I may feel differently. Also this board has 4 Nvme SSD slots so if you want to set up a RAID array you can go wild. And wifi. The board has built-in wifi. Not that you'd ever use that for trading but it's there.
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws V 64GB (2 x 32GB) DDR4-3600 PC4-28800 CL18 Dual Channel
Price: $279.99 (I bought two packs so total price for me: $559.98
Link: https://www.microcenter.com/product...el-desktop-memory-kit-f4-3600c18d-64gvk-black
The motherboard I bought has 4 memory slots on it and I wanted 128GB of RAM. Each package of RAM I got has 2 32GB modules so I bought 2 packs for a total of 4 32GB sticks. If you don't need that much RAM, you can get one pack for a total of 64GB. I would consider that the minimum if you want to keep the computer for a few years, also go ahead and get 32GB sticks since if you ever want to upgrade to 128GB you will need that in each of the four slots. Should you, e.g., buy 16GB sticks or lower, you will have to replace them if you want to max the computer out at a later date. DDR4 RAM has 3 numbers that really matter: size, speed, and latency. The ones here are not the slowest or the absolute fastest but they do split the difference well for the price. You could go faster for considerably more bucks but it's unlikely you will notice the difference. I paid $600 for the DDR4 but had I opted instead for 128GB of DDR5 it would have cost around $1100. For RAM. $1100. Wew lads.
CPU Cooler: Lian Li Galahad 360mm RGB Water Cooling Kit
Price: $159.99
Link: https://www.microcenter.com/product/638087/lian-li-galahad-360mm-rgb-water-cooling-kit-black
I prize stability above most everything else in my trading computer and I use my system hard so I don't screw around when it comes to keeping CPU temps under control. The 12900k is a power hungry processor and you could probably get away with a very high powered fan/heatsink like the legendary Noctua DH15 but if you're willing to go further, consider water cooling. It may sound a bit much but it's not that big a deal. And if you go water then get a triple fan setup. Doesn't cost much more than a dual fan but the cooling capacity is 50% greater. Whatever you do, avoid the cheap single 120mm setups. That is a waste of money. The Lian Li Galahad reviews very well and is one of the lowest price triple fan setups on the market. I have it running on the system next to me. It's silent and it gets the job done well. Note that you're gonna need a special bracket so it'll fit on the 12900k processor. It's not included but only costs $4.99 extra. Link here:
https://www.microcenter.com/product/644357/lian-li-galahad-lga-1700-bracket
Also the cooler may have "RGB" in the name but you can turn it all off. My system is pitch black with no lights on anywhere.
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 850 GA 850 Watt
Price: $139.99
Link: https://www.microcenter.com/product...t-80-plus-gold-atx-fully-modular-power-supply
Again, stability is key here. You want a reputable part that can supply your system with plenty of power. You have 2 older graphics cards so 850 watts will be plenty for you. This power supply has 4.7/5 stars with 165 ratings on Microcenter's website. I didn't dig much more deeply into it than that. So far it works well.
Get those parts, spend 2 or 3 hours putting the whole thing together, add the graphics cards and hard drives you already have, and you're done.
Total price: $1414.94 + tax and you'll have one of the fastest setups you can possibly buy with hand-picked high quality parts. You could go faster in multi-core speed but the price would instantly triple or quadruple as you'd have to buy a high end Threadripper or Xeon and even then you'd still be much slower in single core.
Assuming you have a large case that'll fit a triple water cooler, you can stop here.
However, if you also need recommendations on a case, SSD, and video card, read on.
SSD: WD Black SN850 2TB M.2 NVMe Interface PCIe Gen 4
Capacity: 2 Terabytes (2000 Gigabytes)
Price: $319.99
Link:
https://www.microcenter.com/product...id-state-drive-with-3d-tlc-nand-(wds200t1x0e)
Every review I've looked at pitches this as the fastest SSD on the market bar none. The Samsung 980pro is the closest but in most benchmarks the WD SN850 edges it out slightly (and at a lower price!). It uses the generation 4 PCI Express standard giving it sustained read speeds of 7000 Megabytes per second. That is an astounding number considering where we were just a few years ago. There are Gen5 SSDs on the horizon but nobody knows when they will be released. For now, this is it. My 8700k box uses an Intel Optane 900p SSD which is a bit different than the usual stuff. Suffice it to say it is low latency and very fast. With this new SSD though, charts load in Sierrachart probably 2 or 3 times faster. That was a big pain point for me since I trade many different futures markets and I close my charts on Friday at market close. Opening Sierrachart on Sunday evening basically sucked. Loading and loading and loading on the Optane. This is no longer the case. As far as reliability, it's a newly released drive but nothing I've seen indicates the SN850 will be cause for concern.
Case: Fractal Design Meshify 2
Price: $169.99
Link: https://www.microcenter.com/product...tempered-glass-window-mid-tower-computer-case
What can I say? It's a case. It's on the large side so the water cooler fits, it seems quite sturdy, and there's no specific garishness to offend my (read: my wife's) delicate sensibilities. I like it.
Video Card: PowerColor AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT
Price: $559.99
Link: https://www.microcenter.com/product...cked-dual-fan-8gb-gddr6-pcie-40-graphics-card
This may be the one item that doesn't work for you since you already have some video cards and you're running 7 monitors which as far as I can tell you won't be able to do here without some dongles and tinkering. I imagine your monitors are using display port. This card has 3 display ports and the motherboard has a single display port. There's a USB-C port on the back of the motherboard too that might have display port functionality but I'm not sure. I keep my monitor situation really simple since I just use one. However, that one monitor is a 65" 8k television hence why I got this specific video card. 8k TVs, as far as I've seen, only have HDMI inputs, no display port at all so to run one at 8k and 60 hertz, you need an HDMI 2.1 compatible video card. That means either an AMD RX 6x00 series card or an Nvidia 30x0 series card, the latest generations respectively. The Radeon RX 6600XT I got was one of the cheaper cards in stock that checked that specific box for me. I don't game hardly at all so I didn't really care about that but it does run an 8k screen over HDMI. If I were you, I'd probably see what you can make happen with the cards you already have and if you need more, you can always do that later after assembling the initial system.
And that's it. If I'd gone pre-built from Dell or HP or whomever, I doubt I could have bought as nice a system, as fast a system, or a system with the potential longevity as this for the money. Possibly not at any price since, again, you're locked into the components they offer. And all this stuff has warranties and a return policy so I'm good there. I've found with computer stuff it either doesn't work out of the box or it works forever, rarely is there an in between (barring high wear components like hard drives and fans or abuse from heat). So if you don't have to return it the first day you're usually good. I hope this all helps.
Here's a pic of my system running with the parts above (video card is unhooked but I'm doing stuff around it):
