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
We'll freely admit that a thousand-dollar CPU is a little out there, even for a system like the Double-Stuff. The Core i7-980X is simply too good for us to recommend anything else, however. This six-core processor not only has the same clock speed, two more cores, and considerably higher performance than Intel's previous flagship, the 45-nm Core i7-975 Extreme; it also has lower power consumption under load. When we accounted for the price of a full workstation system like this one, the i7-980X actually worked its way to the top of our value charts.

You might have seen that Intel recently released a slower Gulftown processor, the Core i7-970. That's a nice alternative, but considering its near-$900 price tag and locked upper multiplier, we'd rather spend the extra hundred bucks on the i7-980X—at least for our primary build.

Motherboard
As a recent TR Recommended award winner, Asus' Sabertooth X58 motherboard is a great match for the Double-Stuff. This $200 board gives us dual, full-bandwidth PCI Express x16 2.0 slots with SLI and CrossFire support, next-gen I/O, external SATA, FireWire, five-year warranty coverage, those Asus-specific fan control and overclocking features we've grown fond of, and plenty of little extras, like an extensive network of meaty-looking heatsinks. Going for the cheapest board in Asus' X58 repertoire might seem absurd for a system like this, but we really don't need much more. The only real downside here is the fact that the board's Gigabit Ethernet controller runs off a PCI interface, which limits its throughput to around 700Mbps. If you really need a full 1Gbps of Ethernet bandwidth for the the Double-Stuff, you could always throw in a cheap PCI Express Ethernet card like this $30 Intel model.

Memory
Instead of two 6GB kits, we've opted for a bona-fide 12GB DDR3-1600 memory bundle from Corsair. This kit actually includes six 2GB memory modules, but Corsair has tested them together, and the whole package sells for only a little bit more than separate 6GB triple-channel packs. Sounds good to us.

Graphics
AMD's Radeon HD 6870 wins out over the supercharged GeForce GTX 460 1GB for the Double-Stuff. In short, we feel more confident about the cooling performance of AMD's blower-style stock cooler in a dual-GPU configuration. VisionTek's flavor of the 6870 gets the nod again, not just because of its low price and limited lifetime warranty, but also because it features AMD's stock cooler.

Storage
Western Digital's new VelociRaptor is an intriguing option for workstations like the Double-Stuff. However, the VR200M can't keep up with near-instantaneous SSD access times. We've therefore chosen the 256GB variant of Crucial's RealSSD C300 to house the Double-Stuff's operating system and applications. This drive has less than a third the capacity of the new 'raptor, but it offers much better performance, an immunity to mechanical failures, and zero noise output. TRIM support should also help the drive skirt flash memory's dreaded block-rewrite penalty, preventing write performance from degrading dramatically over time. You'll have to make sure you're running Windows 7 or a newer version of Linux for TRIM to work, of course.

For mass storage, we're backing the C300 with a pair of 2TB Western Digital Caviar Greens. These would be a little too sluggish to serve as system drives, but they're affordable and should store bulky multimedia files—or a backup of your SSD's contents—more than adequately. We advise you run two of these drives in a RAID 1 array for extra redundancy, so your data remains safe even if one mechanical drive kicks the bucket.

We should note that Seagate's low-power Barracuda LP 2TB is a credible alternative to the Caviar Green. The 'cuda is a little quieter, too. However, we haven't been impressed by the reliability of Seagate drives of late, so we're going to stick with the Green, which has more positive Newegg reviews than the LP. Simiarly, we're ruling out WD's 3TB Caviar Green, mainly on account of its excessive price tag.

On the optical side of things, that LG Blu-ray burner from the previous page seems like a fine addition to the Double-Stuff. (Just keep in mind that it doesn't ship with Blu-ray playback software.)

Audio
Asus' Xonar DX fits just as well in the Double-Stuff as in our Sweeter Spot build. That said, musicians and others who require more connectivity options might want to consider the Xonar D2X from our alternatives section.

Power Supply
The victor from our latest PSU roundup has found its way here. Corsair's HX750W earned our Editor's Choice award for its near-90% efficiency, great modular cabling system, (relatively) low price, and seven-year warranty. This unit's long, detachable cables in particular should nicely complement our tall case.

Sharp-eyed shoppers might notice Corsair has an 80 Plus Gold-rated AX750W unit selling for a few bucks more. Thing is, a look at the 80 Plus website shows that the HX750W actually made the cut for 80 Plus Gold certification, too. The HX750W also has a larger fan and masses of positive user reviews. The AX750W is more of an unknown quantity at this point, so we feel more confident recommending the HX750W.

Enclosure
For someone building a high-powered workstation/gaming rig who wants to tinker and upgrade often, it doesn't get much better than Corsair's Obsidian 800D. Sure, the $270 asking price is downright exorbitant, but this case has it all: exceptionally roomy internals, hot-swap hard drive bays at the front, excellent cable management with oodles of cable routing holes, a gap in the motherboard back plate for easy access to the back of the CPU socket, three 140-mm fans, room for an additional four 120-mm fans, support for all kinds of liquid cooling setups, a tough steel frame, and a window.

We really do mean it when we say this thing is roomy. At two feet tall and two feet deep, the Obsidian 800D absolutely dwarfs a full-sized ATX motherboard—see the image below. Anyone who's ever cut his hands on a sharp case corner while trying to plug in an unruly connector should see the appeal.