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If you like something a little more statement-y, the Fractal Design North ($155) and Lian Li Lancool 217 ($120) both include the wood accents that some case makers have been pushing lately. The Fractal Design case comes with both mesh and tempered glass side panel options, depending on how into RGB you are, while the Lancool case includes a whopping five case fans for keeping your system cool.

The “God Box”

What it’s good for: Anything and everything.

What it sucks at: Being affordable.

Cost as of this writing: $4,891 to $5,146

We’re avoiding Xeon and Threadripper territory here—frankly, I’ve never even tried to do a build centered on those chips and wouldn’t trust myself to make recommendations—but this system is as fast as consumer-grade hardware gets.

An Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 guarantees the fastest GPU performance you can buy and continues the trend of “paying as much for a GPU as you could for an entire fully functional PC.” And while we have specced this build with a single GPU, the motherboard we’ve chosen has a second full-speed PCIe 5.0 x16 slot that you could use for a dual-GPU build.

A Ryzen 9950X3D chip gets you top-tier gaming performance and tons of CPU cores. We’re cooling this powerful chip with a 360 mm Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro cooler, which has generally earned good reviews from Gamers Nexus and other outlets for its value, cooling performance, and quiet performance. A white option is also available if you’re going for a light-mode color scheme instead of our predominantly dark-mode build.

Other components have been pumped up similarly gratuitously. A 1,000 W power supply is the minimum for an RTX 5090, but to give us some headroom, why not use a 1,200 W model with lights on it? Is PCIe 5.0 storage strictly necessary for anything? No! But let’s grab a 4 TB PCIe 5.0 SSD anyway. And populating all four of our RAM slots with a 32GB stick of DDR5 avoids any unsightly blank spots inside our case.

We’ve selected a couple of largish case options to house our big builds, though as usual, there are tons of other options to fit all design sensibilities and tastes. Just make sure, if you’re selecting a big Extended ATX motherboard like the X870E Taichi, that your case will fit a board that’s slightly wider than a regular ATX or micro ATX board (the Taichi is 267 mm wide, which should be fine in either of our case selections).

Mara Roszak is one of Hollywood’s most sought-after hairstylists. In her 22-year-long career, she’s worked with A-listers and Oscar winners including Emma Stone, Zoë Saldaña, and Halle Berry. Roszak first became obsessed with hair as a teenager learning how to transform her natural curls; after years of experimenting with products, she noticed a gap in the market. “I could not find products that performed at a professional level that were clean,” she says. “The world of pro hair felt very male. I had a different perspective and different voice, and I felt like I really understood the nuance.” In 2021, she founded the hair-care line RŌZ to fill that gap. 

Earlier this year, RŌZ launched its full product line in Sephora just ten days after Roszak gave birth to her second child. “I was on Slack from the delivery room,” she says, and she went back to work just six days after her C-section. Roszak lives in Los Angeles County with her musician husband, their 5-year-old son, and their 6-month-old daughter. Here’s how she gets it done.

On her morning routine:
The baby wakes up around 6:30, and she’s our alarm clock. My husband usually gets her out of her crib and brings her to me. I’m still semi-nursing, so I’ll nurse her. Our son comes into the room, usually by 7 a.m., and my husband delivers me coffee in bed. Then it’s off to the races getting ready for school. We used to drive my son to Silver Lake, which took about 20 minutes. But now we’re staying local in La Cañada, so it’s a six-minute commute and I can make it back for 9 a.m. calls.

On managing stress:
Before kids, I never stressed. Work didn’t really stress me out; I mean, it did occasionally, when I was rushing to and from airports. But for the most part, I’m very good under pressure. If someone wants to completely change their hairstyle, or a photographer is like, “This isn’t working. Let’s do that,” I’m like, “Great. Let’s go.” I’m just very flexible and fluid. I try to take walks when I can. A long, hot shower or bath at the end of the night really makes a difference. I want to meditate, but I don’t.

On (not) setting boundaries:
I never really unplug. I respect other people’s boundaries, but I like to always be on. I was on Slack from the delivery room. I’m not saying every moment is the most joyous, but at the end of the day, I love what we’re creating with RŌZ, and I love doing hair.

On emotional intuition in her work:
As important as it is to be talented at doing hair, you have to have emotional intuition. I always tell assistants that you want to check your own energy and ask yourself, “What am I bringing into this room?” It’s such an important piece of the job. People remember how you made them feel, and I am very much in a service role. I want people to feel incredible when they’re in my hands. It’s a vulnerable experience for the client, and I take it very seriously.

On discovering her love for hair:
I was about 13 when I inherited curly hair that I didn’t really recognize post-puberty. Every single one of my friends had model hair; they could get up, add water, and it would just air-dry. I was very determined to have that. It was the ’90s, so there was a lot of straight hair. I got really good at doing my own hair with my mom’s 1985 blow-dryer, and then I started to do my friends’ hair. People started to come to my house, and I’d do their hair before we went to bar and bat mitzvahs and birthday parties.

On her first big break:
When I was 18, I got a call to do Sarah Michelle Gellar’s hair from her publicist, who was dating my cousin at the time. I didn’t even know what a publicist was, and I said, “Yes, of course, I would love to do her hair.” My mom had to drive me to Sarah Michelle’s house because I didn’t have a driver’s license yet, and she dropped me off around the corner. I did Sarah’s hair, she loved it, and shortly after, she invited me on a press tour with her. I was traveling around the world, and I had never been out of the country before that.

On learning how to build and run a business:
I never knew anything about formulating products or building a team or raising capital and what it entailed. I didn’t go to school for that. But I obviously know a ton about hair and about what I want products to do for hair. I learned an entirely new skill set 22 years into my career. That comes with its own stress: wanting it to be the best, having a family simultaneously — oh, and going through COVID.

On going back to work days after giving birth:
I was working literally six days after the baby was born, and I had a Cesarean. I felt good, which was really lucky. I put on my girdle and worked. So much of who I am is connected to the women I work with, and it’s my creative outlet. I felt the most like myself being able to do that. Three weeks later, I was on a plane to Paris Fashion Week with the baby.

On the people who help her get it done:
We have an incredible nanny. My daughter doesn’t know a world without her, and I’m so grateful for her. She’s patient and soft, and it’s nice to have someone who feels like an extension of our family. Her kids are older than mine and they’re in school full-time, but when they’re not, I tell her to bring them with her. And my husband is incredibly hands-on and very helpful.

On her relationship with money:
I haven’t been comfortable talking about money in the past, and I learned through building RŌZ that there are going to be moments where you’re thinking about it and talking about it and raising it and spending it. I started working really young. I liked making my own money and not ever needing to rely on anyone for it. I really never asked for money until I went to raise capital for RŌZ. I had to reframe that in my mind: that it was an opportunity for someone, rather than me asking for money.

On the power of “yes”:
I really said “yes” to a ton early in my career. I was very much a “yes” person, and I’m not someone who has a ton of boundaries, but I think that has served me well in my career. Say yes while you’re building, then just figure it out. You don’t have to have all the answers, and when you don’t, it’s just an opportunity to learn more.

First, it was protein muffins: flourless chocolate ones made with banana, zucchini, kale, and peanut butter that were “packed with protein” to provide “long-lasting energy for our busy little people.” I scrolled past without giving it much thought until a few weeks later, when the same Instagram account served up a recipe for a toddler protein shake. It wasn’t the only one. Next thing I knew, I was wading through recipes for Rice Krispie Treats made with hemp heart and advice to serve “leftover birthday-party candy” alongside a high-protein snack like a hard-boiled egg. Now, my feed is full of carnivore babies eating whipped bone marrow. Hannah Bronfman has been serving her 4-year-old pizza with ground-chicken crust, and Hannah Neeleman’s kids can’t get enough yogurt mixed with a scoop of Ballerina Farm protein powder. Jennifer Garner’s baby-food company, Once Upon a Farm, recently launched refrigerated protein bars for kids. Even the New York Times is here to help with high-protein bento box ideas for the start of the school year.

Given the explosion of cottage-cheese recipes and ‘What I Eat in a Day” videos featuring David bars, it was only a matter of time until protein-mania came for toddlers, too. In recent years, the rise of kid-food Instagram has made feeding young children seem like an increasingly daunting task. First, parents were sneaking vegetables into brownies and macaroni and cheese. Now, they’re worried their kids aren’t eating enough protein. Amy Palanjian, a recipe developer who posts protein muffins and smoothies on the popular account Yummy Toddler Food, says the obsession has ramped up in the past year or two. She’s noticed that kid-friendly recipes that promise protein tend to get a lot more engagement. “Now, if I post a bowl of pasta, someone’s gonna be like, Okay, but where’s the protein?”

The anxiety is understandable. Toddlers famously love beige foods, and a lot of them refuse to eat meat or chicken. “They just don’t like the texture. It’s hard for them to eat,” says Megan McNamee, a registered dietitian who runs the Instagram account Feeding Littles.

But even if their chicken breast ends up on the floor, your toddler is almost certainly getting enough protein. McNamee says that, between the ages of 1 and 3, most kids should aim to get at least 13 grams of protein a day — about two to three servings, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Barring certain medical complications, “almost every toddler I work with is easily meeting those needs,” says McNamee. That’s because many foods that we don’t typically think of as “high protein” actually have a decent amount of it. A cup of milk, for example, has eight grams of protein — meaning many toddlers get all the protein they need from milk alone. An egg has seven grams of protein. We tend to forget that wheat also contains protein. Laura Thomas, a registered nutritionist who writes the newsletter Can I Have Another Snack?, points out that a cup of cooked pasta — which usually has about eight grams of protein per serving — provides more than half of a toddler’s daily protein requirements. “Broadly speaking, if a toddler is growing as expected, that’s a good indication that they’re getting enough protein,” she says.

And despite what you hear from fitness and weight-loss influencers, most adults are getting plenty of protein, too. Experts recommend that healthy adults should eat at least 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight — so a person who weighs 150 pounds should aim to get a minimum of 54 grams of protein a day. According to data from the USDA, most Americans get way more than that. While there’s growing debate over whether those recommendations should be higher — particularly for people who are strength training or aging — some of the recommendations online have gotten out of control. “Now people are saying you need, like, 200 grams of protein a day,” says McNamee. “That’s insane.”

It is true that protein helps keep us full, and McNamee thinks that no matter your age, it’s worth trying to have some with every meal or snack: “If your kid is just eating fruit leathers and Goldfish, then yes, they will be hungry all the time.” But adding protein can be as simple as giving kids some crackers with cheese or peanut butter, she says. “I think there’s this idea that if you don’t have meat as the main dish, you’re not getting enough protein,” says Palanjian. “That’s just not true — for adults or for kids.”

Meanwhile, evidence suggests that parents might want to focus more on fiber — a nutrient most American children actually don’t get enough of. But according to Palanjian, that’s a much harder sell on Instagram. She recently put together a collection of high-fiber recipes, like chickpea fritters and black-bean soup. “I think I mentioned it on Instagram one time,” she says. “Nobody cared.”