So I am looking at building my next-gen workstation, my current one being three years old, difficult to get updated drivers for, and starting to show incompatibilities with new hardware.

In researching what's out there, I made the staggering discovery that one can purchase, over the counter, components to build one's own supercomputer - 4 freaking teraflops of processing power - for a very reasonable price. I haven't priced all the components down the line, but it's somewhere within a shout of $5-6k.

Four teraflops under the desk. Ye gads.

Here's the platform for it: .

My son has already built one. He would have to give you the technical details, but he started with an ASUS motherboard in an Alienware case, added the most powerful ATI Radeon processor and other various thingees, including super graphics cards with independent cooling fans, six hard drives, and God knows what else. I shudder to think about the kWh it draws.

What the hell are you people trying to do, take over the world?

I expect a cure for cancer by the end of next week. I'll settle for the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.