I have not built my own PC in years... in fact I think the last PC I built was a Pentium-1. I've been buying commercial PCs since then. Now... I have a NICE bonus from work coming and have committed to myself that I no longer want to wait for 8 hours while my DVD's compress. I no longer want to live with measly 60 fps in my favorite games. I want to be near the top of the PCMark05 list! So... with all that said I have $10k. I am leaning towards dual socket quad core Xeon's...

But... I am not stuck on anything. So - professionals... let's have it... $10k budget - what would you get?

IQ1

You can build a monster of a machine for $6,000 and then take a 3-week trip to Europe with the money left over instead........

For 10 large, you're looking at:

-Intel Quad core
-680i SLI mobo
-4 gigs RAM
-1000w Galaxy PSU
-2 x 8800GTX (in SLI, liquid cooled)
-Silverstone TJ-07 case
-Liquid Cooling (take your pick, Phase/Nitrogen if that excites the overclocker in you)
-2x150 gig Raptors in RAID 0
-Seagate 750 gig data drive
-2 DVD-RW SATA optical drives
-30" LCD monitor
-Creative Labs X-Fi Elite Pro sound
-Klipsch 7.1 surround surround speakers
-keyboard, mouse, etc

That'll run you 10 Large no problem. But if you run into budget overruns, lower the sound card, ditch 1 DVD SATA, and go with high-end air cooling.

Or, if you want a real badazz rig with attitude built for you, give Voodoo PC a shout:
http://www.voodoopc.com/system/quo [...] uctID=1055

Am I better off with Two Xeon's or One Quad-Core?

I'm not too sure to be honest. From what I've read, the quad will pull down less power though, and won't need some special mobo either.

Here is my recommendation

ASUS Striker-Extreme
Intel QX6700 (better than 2 xeons because is single cpu)
4Gb of Corsair Dominator CAS 4 PC8888 (Maybe you should also consider the NEW just released Dominator PC10000 CAS 5! Fastest Memory in the world!)
2 eVGA 8800GTX with ACS 3 in SLI
2x150Gb WD Raptors in RAID 0 (Maybe more if you need more than 300Gb of capacity, RAID 5 can be an option with more than 3 Raptors)
Seagate 750Gb hard drive SATA 3gbs (This have a lot of space, you can use it for backups or just as an auxiliary drive)
Plextor SATA DVD burner
Another Plextor (or other brand like Sony) burner but in ATA just in case
ThermalTake Armor 8004BWS (this is the side window version)
Silverstone 1000watts PSU or Enermax 1000watts PSU
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy X-fi Elite pro
Logitech Z-5500
Logitech MX Revolution
Logitech G15 gaming keyboard
Windows XP SP2 (lol)
Sony Floppy drive just in case (lol)
A BIG Dell screen or any other brand you like, maybe Sceptre or Samsung.

Also you can add as the webcam the Logitech QuickCam Ultra Vision and some good neons from Xoxide

By the way, avoid OCZ memory together with ASUS, they are very incompatible

pair all of that with an expensive and good quality Water cooling system and you are getty to kick some good frames.

EDIT: Parts in Italics are the edits!

Here is a ms word doc complete with pictures, links (some might not work anymore), and prices... with a rough total of $8000 after accessories. I put this together in December for fun... you may want to swap some things out, I just was going by my preferences... like how I have the thing air cooled with a 220 CFM 120 mm fan on the cpu.... I just can't stand an expensive rig that doesn't put out at least 45-65 db... lol. Dream

Will the single processer give me faster MPEG2 or DIVX compression than two Xeon's?

Don't bother with dual socket Xeons if you want to be anywhere near the top of the 3DMark06 as no dual socket Xeon board supports SLI/Crossfire.

I have edited my last post with italics to let him know what I have just found nice for his system

Are you trying to spend every bit of $10k or is it that it just so happens to be your budget because you can put a nice rig together for half of that.

I would probably buy a mac pro, upgrade grfx, hd, mem, etc, throw away the mouse, keep the keyboard. Install my OS.

I'm not trying to spend every bit of the $10k... I get my bonus from work and the agreement with my wife is that she can spend $10k on furniture and I can spend $10k on a new computer... I love to play games on my PC but I have an XBox 360 mostly for that. I use Softimage, Photoshop, 3D Studio.... I constantly have to convert DIVX to DVD or vice-versa (friends wants copies of stuff, etc.)... I really want a PC that I don't have to wait for. I also have two cable modems and DSL on a load-balancing router... I can get the contect quick enough - processing it sucks. So I guess what I am saying is that I am not a huge gamer but will play games once in a while. I'm looking for better multi-tasking speed, video compression/manipulation, photo editing, rar extraction, qpar recovery, etc. Frankly... I am just tired of waiting for my PC... The biggest thing I am stuck on is Two Dual Core Xeon's or a Single Processer with SLI/Crossfire...

listen

A XEON MOTHERBOARD WONT GIVE YOU THE BEST GAMING PLATFORM

with that said, you should have in mind that getting a Xeon, will be your worse dissapointment.

NOW

if you still want a xeon, buy a system similar as the one I have mentioned to you above but with the Xeon 3060 which is an E6600 but renamed as a Xeon (as you love them so much), is $10 extra, but with $10k, you can afford a faster model, just make sure you get a Xeon in the LGA775.

If I had that kind of a budget for a rig I'd put most of it into equipment that won't depreciate exponentially in value from the time it's purchased till the time it arrives at your doorstep (I.E. Audio Equip, speakers, a nice 2+ LCD setup)

Besides, you can usually stay on the competitive edge (versus the bleeding edge) for 1/3-1/2 the cost, and use the remaining $$ on an annual upgrade path.

Unless you get one of those bonuses every year

That's my 0.02 USD / 0.015 EUR

You might wanna go with the QX6700. Do some research on it. You won't be disappointed. With that, the only thing you'll be upgrading in awhile will be the bios.

Wow. $10K!? You can build a dream car with a dream pc in it.

Okay, if you want gaming then, don't go for the server configuration.

QX6700
2x1Gb Corsair Dominator DDR2 1111
Asus Striker
2x8800GTX BFG
2x150GB Raptor for raid 0
X-Fi Fatal1ty
1K watts PSU Tagan w/ 4xPCI-e cable

You can find most of the parts above from Newegg, TigerDirect and Zipzoomfly.

Case:

Vapochill Lian Li

CPU cooler:

Vapochill Lightspeed

Overclock that cpu to the max with this phase change cooler, and with SLI 8800GTX you can play any games at big screen HD monitor at silky smooth performance.

I dunno, Ninja says that they are just better batches of Core 2 Duos. I trust him. It makes sense that they are, and since they are they should have comparable or slightly better performance than standard Cores.
-cm

I'm not trying to talk you out of your $10000 budget...but spread it around a little. Spend $5000 this year, $2500 next year, and $2500 the year after that.

I think that after three years, the $10000 computer won't even come close to the computer you upgrade every year.

Also, the method I'm suggesting does not apply to the monitor. Buy a nice one and you'll enjoy it for many years.

Well, let me tell you something. I though also that the Xeon 3060 was the perfect choice, but then I realized something.

Ok Pros

1) Use less voltage
2) overheats less
3) Is a xeon, designed for heavy duty tasks

As far as I know, they are not overclocking well in some situations. Xtremsystems.org made a good overclock, but not everybody have gone that far. (as far as I know)