I thought it appropriate to thank Chris (Club Neon) for his fantastic help in getting me into a new computer on the forum that helped me find him. I was ready to place the order for a Dell, but Chris convinced me that I could build one. To my surprise, he was right. With his detailed help, I built a new computer based on the brand-spanking-new Intel i7 (Nehalem) 1366-pin chip. The gory details follow, but suffice it to say his advice on vendors and products proved right on, and he walked me through the actual build step by step over the phone and email. I only found out how accurate he was after doing my own research after every recommendation, only to end up right where he put me to begin with. Then, once I fired up the new hot-rod, i knew he was good at his job. I can run two big screens of CAD/CAM, plus a ton of crap in the background. Sweet!

Saved about $2,000 as compared to the Dell, and got a bit more performance, and in less time. Thanks again Chris.

Vital Stats:
SuperMicro Barebone Tower/4U S-1366 for i7 CPUs
Radeon HD 4870x2 2GB GDDR5
Intel 920 i7 CPU
12 GB RAM
Vista Ultimate 64-bit
2 TB Seagate Cuda Drives (Raid 1)
2 23" Samsung LCDs
Pioneer Blu-Ray burner
6 or 7 cooling fans assorted other stuff!

That is a hot rod PC. This would be why PC's still dominate the market, the DIY fun of them.

Been waiting for you to make this post. You're welcome once again.

I need to get me one of those Blu-ray burners.

Damn, that's a nice rig. I just build my own Core i7, but it doesn't have as many fancy gew gaws as yours.

Me loves some gew gaws! Really I just wanted to make sure I had no problems with CAD, as I was not sure how much power I needed for 3D modeling. Turns out, I have plenty!

I have not burned a BR yet. And once I saw the blanks were $17 I figured I should think about it before I just go burning everything I can find. But it plays BRs very nicely in 1080p.

DAMN..thats one awesome rig.

Thinking about putting Windows 7? I am running beta and it blows vista.

--Avi

Nice work. I may have to get Chris to weigh in on my next build, which I'll do after Windows 7 is out. I don't feel like I need more power than I have, really, but I'd like to pass this computer on to my sister, since she's been without one, and as long as I'm getting a new one, I may as well make it a fun one.

We should just very nicely ask Chris to post the notes here!

Kudos to Chris for helping you out so much!

That looks like a killer machine. I'd love to build me one, but honestly, I don't do anything that needs that kind of computing power.