The Double-Stuff Workstation
Recession? What recession?

In the realm of enthusiast PC hardware, there's good enough, better than good enough, and as good as it gets before becoming a waste of money. The Double-Stuff Workstation belongs to the third category.

Processor
Intel's Core i7-940 sure didn't take long to flee the scene after Intel introduced the Core i7-950. That's okay, though, because the newcomer costs the same as its predecessor while running faster—at 3.06GHz instead of 2.93GHz. We wouldn't exactly call that a free upgrade, but it gives the Double-Stuff more processing power for the same amount of money.

Some might say we should've sprung for the new Core i7-975 Extreme Edition, since it's even faster and has an unlocked upper multiplier. Problem is, that CPU costs over a grand, and we'd rather avoid massive and not-entirely-justified price premiums, at least in our primary config. (We have, however, featured the 975 in our alternatives on the next page.)

Motherboard
We're not going with the fanciest possible motherboard here, either. Asus' P6T has three physical PCIe x16 slots (with CrossFire and SLI support), six DDR3 memory slots, and nine SATA ports (including one eSATA port), so it's definitely better equipped than the mobo we picked for the Sweeter Spot. With a price tag of less than $250, though, the P6T also isn't an expensive step up. Well, at least not when your whole computer costs over $2,500.

Memory
Yeah, yeah. Most folks will be perfectly content with 4GB of RAM, so recommending three times that much might seem a little crazy. However, keep in mind that our second 6GB OCZ kit only raises the full system price by about 4%. The extra memory will surely come in handy for folks faced with actual workstation tasks, too. Besides, who wouldn't enjoy the bragging rights?

Graphics
We established on the previous page that, if you want a significant leap up from a single Radeon HD 4890 or GeForce GTX 275, you pretty much need dual GPUs. Here, our ample budget allows us to spring for a pair of PNY's GeForce GTX 275s.

Why not dual Radeon HD 4890s? We haven't tested the 4890 or GTX 275 in multi-GPU mode, but we've found that a Radeon HD 4870 1GB CrossFire setup doesn't always scale as well from one GPU to two as a pair of GeForce GTX 260 cards in SLI. From that, we can extrapolate that dual GTX 275s should have a performance edge over their counterparts with red PCBs. On top of that, as we've already said, newer games tend to perform better with Nvidia multi-GPU configs.

Storage
We've rethought our storage setup for this build, trading Intel's 80GB X25-M solid-state drive for a pair of 300GB Western Digital VelociRaptors. You can set these up in a RAID-1 or RAID-0 array as you see fit, depending on whether you favor redundancy or potentially higher performance with a greater risk of data loss.

Why the change? The X25-M remains a formidable product, but after using it in desktop PCs for some time, we've found its limited capacity a little hard to swallow. More likely than not, you'll be forced to run some applications and games off a mechanical drive—and that defeats the entire point of having an SSD. The VelociRaptors still offer quicker access times than 7,200-RPM desktop drives, without the constant threat of running out of space. We've also had some second thoughts about SSDs performance in light of the block rewrite penalty these drives face in a used state, which can reduce write speeds. Given that, we're back to mechanical storage in our premium build for the time being.

We're combining the VelociRaptors with a pair of 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blacks for mass storage. Both Seagate's 1.5TB Barracudas and WD's 2TB Caviar Greens are slower overall, and the 2TB Caviar Greens have the added downside of considerably higher prices. On the optical side of things, we're featuring our Blu-ray/HD DVD combo drive again, since we doubt you'll want to watch only standard-def DVDs on a system like this.

Audio
Asus' Xonar DX fits in just as well here as in our other builds. That said, musicians and others who require more connectivity options may want to consider the Xonar D2X in our alternatives section.

Eagle-eyed readers might notice that, with two dual-slot graphics cards installed, our recommended motherboard won't have any PCIe x1 slots free for the Xonar DX. That's okay, though: you can put it into the remaining PCIe x16 slot. Doing so will admittedly prevent you from running a three-GPU setup, but as far as we've seen, that third GPU wouldn't do much for performance, anyway.

Power Supply
Simply put, Corsair's TX850W is a higher-wattage version of the Sweeter Spot's PSU. This unit gives you similar advantages—a greater-than-80% efficiency rating, five-year warranty, and a single 12V rail—but it has more juice and more cables, including two pairs of eight-pin PCIe power connectors for high-end graphics cards. The TX850W might be louder than the Silencer, but we're not as worried about noise levels here. All of these high-end parts will make some noise when they kick into high gear.

Enclosure
We believe a good workstation requires a big, roomy case, so we've brought back Cooler Master's Cosmos 1000 for that purpose. This enclosure shares some design elements with the Antec P182 (like a flipped internal layout that houses the power supply at the bottom), but it's bigger, badder, and more enthusiast-friendly. Four 120 mm fans generate plenty of airflow, and the Cosmos has enough room to accommodate six hard drives, five 5.25" drives, multi-GPU configurations, and internal liquid cooling systems.

Cooler Master also primed the case for quiet operation by using insulated side panels and low-speed fans. Hit our full review of the Cosmos for additional details on this case's unique features and swanky design.