(FORTUNE Magazine) – Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. --Lord Acton

The theme for this issue is power. So, with Lord Acton's words as our mantra and Dr. Frankenstein as our mentor, it's time for our annual ritual of building an absolutely corrupt PC. You are a powerful person, after all, and don't want your underlings or your children snickering every time you boot up. No, you want a powerful computer, with a capital POW!

Sure, you can buy a high-end PC at a store, but off-the-shelf systems always contain compromises. Building your own (or paying your personal techie to do it) lets you boast only best-of-breed components. Even if you're happy with your current PC, the components we have chosen could give your system a boost.

Here we go. Prices are typical for your local electronics store, but check for deals online at www.pricegrabber.com.

PROCESSOR. Intel Pentium 4, 3.0 gigahertz, with Hyper-Threading ($470). Yes, Intel makes a faster, 3.2-gigahertz P4 processor ($690), but the price difference far exceeds the performance gain. This year the P4 gets the nod over rival AMD's Athlon XP chips because of hyperthreading, an important turbocharging technique that makes the most efficient use of the processor.

MOTHERBOARD. It's important to pair the processor with a compatible main circuitboard; it doesn't make much difference how fast the processor is if the rest of the PC system can't keep up. Intel's D875PBZ ($190) is the P4's perfect match, supporting the chip's 800-megahertz front-side bus. There are goodies galore: six USB 2.0 ports, five PCI card slots, serial ATA (SATA) and RAID support for fast hard drives, AGP 8X graphics, and all sorts of other geeky things.

OPERATING SYSTEM. Microsoft Windows XP Pro, OEM edition ($160).

CASE. Although enticed by the new crop of mini-PC cases, each about the size of a football, I chose the Frank Gehry-inspired aluminum WaveMaster from CoolerMaster ($179). Cool in more ways than one, it has both style and good heat dissipation.

POWER SUPPLY. Do I need 520 watts of system power? Of course! Vantec's Stealth power supply ($140) is the strong, silent type, with three temperature-controlled fans and wires for SATA.

HARD DISK. I was tempted by Western Digital's wicked 10,000-rpm Raptor drive but chose Seagate's 120-gigabyte, 7,200-rpm Barracuda SATA drive ($170) for its higher capacity and its solid reputation.

MEMORY. You can never have too much RAM. I'm stuffing my PC with a pair of Corsair's 512-MB PC3200 DDR memory modules ($110 each).

OPTICAL DRIVE 1. Sony's DRU-510A DVD/CD rewritable drive and TDK's impressive Indi DVD drive are both nice; each can read and write to every flavor of DVD. I went with Sony ($330) for its reputation, although the TDK ($300) is cheaper and maybe a bit faster.

OPTICAL DRIVE 2. True, I don't need another drive, but I want one for easier and faster burning and copying of CDs. My choice: the speedy Plextor PlexWriter Premium 52X-32X-52X drive ($129).

FLOPPY DRIVE. None. An M-Systems 128-megabyte DiskOnKey Pro flash memory USB keychain drive makes much more sense ($93).

SOUND CARD. I'll hear no dissent: Total corruption demands Creative's Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum 24-bit, 6.1-channel surround-sound card and drive-bay control panel ($200).

SPEAKERS. Logitech's Z-680 THX-certified, 500-watt surround-sound system ($400) consists of five desktop speakers, a brawny subwoofer, a control module, and a remote.

VIDEOCARD. My game pals favor the nVidia GeForce4 Ti, but for versatile graphics fun, including the ability to watch TV on my PC, I'm going with ATI's Radeon All-in-Wonder 9700 Pro, with 128 megabytes of dedicated DDR video memory ($400).

KEYBOARD, MOUSE. I'm grabbing Logitech's evil-looking black-and-silver MX-700 cordless optical mouse and keyboard duo ($100).

ACCESSORIES. An absolutely corrupted PC needs to inspire awe, so I'm adding an Antec external LED light tube ($16), which plugs into a USB port and pulsates in sync with the sounds coming out of the PC, while cycling through seven colors.

DISPLAY. Power demands to be seen, so I'm showing off with Samsung's outrageously expensive ($4,500) but unmatched 24-inch wide-screen, HDTV-ready SyncMaster 241MP LCD TV/display. You don't need to turn the computer on to tell the world that you're powerful. If I had more power, I might even be able to talk the boss into buying one for me.

For more tech advice, see Peter Lewis's weblog at www.fortune.com/ontech.

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