Well, I can agree with this part: The main thing is to have a process more than a single particular setup. I've tried all sorts of home-built systems, includin

Well, I can agree with this part: The main thing is to have a process more than a single particular setup. I've tried all sorts of home-built systems, including water cooled, phase change, etc... The conclusion I've reached is that upgrading every 6 months is more important than trying to get the fastest possible system at one point of time. The time and energy I used to spend optimizing my hardware I now spend making sure it's easy to swap out my current machine for a new machine with the least downtime. Not so much from the perspective of constant hardware upgrades, but from the perspective of being able to translocate and go (and, presumably, also back up an entire environment as easily).