looking to build a powerful desktop for work (scientific computation)

hey all,

i don't know much about actual hardware, even though i'm majoring in computer science, i'm more interested in programming aspect so forgive my ignorance.

i work for a research center where we perform intensive computations that require multiple processors but usually not as much ram. we're actually supposed to have some kind of massively parallel CPU "cluster" but it won't arrive for maybe 2 years.

right now on my work machine i'm running on a 16gb RAM, quad core (not sure what kind of processor) but i think it's at least 3ghz per processor. my computations still take all night, or several days sometimes.

i'm looking to build something in the 2-3k $ range. i also want as many processors as possible because the more parallel my system is the faster my particular type of computation will happen.

so yeah if someone has a good idea for what i should do, built it myself or buy the parts separately and assemble them? i've never put together a computer but i doubt its that hard.

so yeah, something between 2 and 3 thousand, as parallel as i can get it. thanks!

edit oh yeah it needs to have linux also don't know if that matters for the hardware.

edit #2 sorry about this, it also needs a decent graphics card as we do alot of scientific visualization as well (although it doesn't have to be top of the line like the processor).

Russell