[kctess5]

I built a desktop with a quad core i5, 16gb ram, a GTX970, an Intel SSD, and around 2tb of spinning disk storage. The whole build cost around $700 and it's a very fast machine. I also have 2x 1440p 25" monitors, a mechanical keyboard, and recently added a (normal looking) gaming mouse. I use it primarily for programming/research and occasionally games/oculus rift. Also makes a great web server.

I run Ubunutu, with i3 window manager. I really like this combo after some personalization. It's very stable, and lightweight. I also have two Windows versions and a secondary Linux installation which come in handy.

I also have a 2013 15" rMBP of which I think very highly. I can mount my 2tb of desktop storage, and my SSD as a network drive on the MacBook for sharing files. I also use SSH to run intensive scripts (sometimes GPU stuff) on the desktop.

10/10 would recommend this setup