I didn’t build my own – I bought a stock HP desktop computer 3 years ago with two drives, super fast quad processor (950), lots of memory, firewire ports, etc. Running Windows 7 64-bit. Internet, email, etc, don’t even register. Cubase is my heaviest load, but it doesn’t really stress the system usually no matter what I throw at it. Native Instruments Studio Drummer is the biggest hog (much worse than Superior Drummer for example), but I can cope with it (per Steinberg’s recommendation, turned off Hyperthreading, and that did help with Studio Drummer).
I’m hoping to stick with this for a while. Not much tuning required. Cubase (6.07) never crashes, performance is great for what I’m doing, and nothing else is even close to burdening the system.
I mean, it’s gotten to the point where the computer and software are no longer an excuse!! Honestly, it’s what we were all hoping for years ago.