Lining up the systems on our test benches, though, proved just how spectacular these PCs are: SSDs, water-cooling and touchscreen fan controllers on the inside; triple monitors, adjustable mice and £400 speakers on the outside.

As well as benchmarking, I’ve spent plenty of time in the Labs taking pictures of these stunning computers. To get the full low-down on which system takes the Ultimate PC crown, you’ll have to wait until Thursday when PC Pro issue 204 hits the shelves. Until then, take a look at these pictures, try not to drool, and pick out which you’d buy if you had several thousand pounds to spare.

When the weather is hot, and I’m standing in people’s server rooms and they are going nuts with fear and loathing about their precious servers going into meltdown, I like to ask them about Miso soup: and if they get all confused (and then angry and then don’t pay my bill), I ask them how much they think the air inside the typical hot-air balloon actually weighs.

Very few get it right: the answer is, about five tons. Once you get that idea into your head, getting emergency cooling for servers sorted out starts to make a good deal more sense – and those elephant’s-trunk so-called aircon units which harassed managers tend to put in as a reflex action during these periods, start to look more like a way to throw kilowatts into the air for very little benefit, than like a smart way to stop your servers going into meltdown.

Got any good “boy stood on the burning deck” stories from extreme heat or wild weather?