What's the best computer you've ever built and...

The one in my sig (current build)

Solid State Drive for OS
Improve with stronger video card and non-malfulctioning PSU
Water cooling?
Better sound card
Blu-ray reader
 
My best build is special because it's my only build. It has worked solidly for about a year, and I'm happy with it.
 
My favorite was my first one in 1985. I didn't know anyone who had ever built a computer (heck, very few of the people I knew even had a computer then). Forums like this one didn't exist. I think you could probably buy a book to show you how but I was too cheap to buy one.

I went to a computer show one weekend and bought the parts I needed: case & power supply, an XT type motherboard switchable between 4.77 & 8Mhz with an NEC V20 processor, 640K of RAM, a 20M Seagate ST-225 HDD and a multi-function card that had a real-time clock (XT mobos didn't have a clock on board), a parallel port, 2 serial ports and a game port. I already had a CGA card and monitor, a full-height 360K floppy drive, 2400 baud modem and a keyboard. I assembled it then had to figure out how to low level format the HDD using the routine built-in to the HDD controller BIOS before I could then partition it and then do the DOS format (PC-DOS 2.1).

This was the first computer I had ever used with an HDD, previously used floppy only machines. Having an HDD was fantastic because you no longer needed to shuffle a bunch of floppies and disk reads and writes were many times faster then on a floppy. Not to mention the unlimited expanse of a 20M HDD. I thought I could never fill that drive.

I've built many more machines since then but that one was the most special for me.
 
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I built my first one about 2 years ago and I'm using it right now. Runs games like BioShock 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 just fine, Dual monitor setup, Radeon HD 6450, has Win 7 pro 64 bit, Ubuntu, and XP home. AMD Athlon II x2 250 @3300 MHz, 5 Gigs DDR2 RAM. I could go on, but I won't. What I wish I had:

Water Cooling
Fast As F**k Internet Service :D
Bigger case, possibly this?
SSD
 
One in my sig, I upgraded with my brother from a P4 with a x1950 pro. Now that I think about it, the only things that I didn't upgrade was the case, dvd drive, and power supply. But the one I built "alone" (with a friend who knew things, but not everything) was probably my favorite because it was last friday and he has good parts.
 
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