I have been putting off the replacement of my personal workstation for the better part of a year now. It was custom configured and built by myself in January 2004, and actually made the #2 spot in the 3dmark rankings. I do not tweak for over-clocking, or other nonsense like that. I just prefer to put together some hot (figuratively) components that will provide me with a robust, versatile workstation to take on any software technologies I can throw at it. And while I am an early adopter (1.0) and continuing enthusiast of VMware workstation, I want to explore other virtualization technologies like Linux KVM, QEMU, and XEN on this new platform.

So, the “old” workstation is a mere dual Intel P4 Xeon, 2.8gHz, with 2gb ECC RAM, and a Radeon 9800XT Pro running atop a SuperMicro motherboard with SATA drives. By today’s standards, this machine is still very much capable of handling my tasks and demands. But after getting a Sony Playstation 3 this past summer, I am eager to get something with a little more pop. So, I came about to purchase the following components:

Realize that last item is for dual booting, as my preferred operating system is Red Hat Fedora.

Now I get to wait for its arrival to unpack, assemble, test, curse, and then test some more. Hopefully, there will not be too much hassle.