what OS are you using and how do you expect to come anywhere near 2GB+ / server in RAM use? will the OS you use even be able to address more than 4GB of RAM?
don't be silly here.
i've built a lot of servers.
the key is to get reliable components and meet requirements without just throwing hardware at the thing.
what kind of internet connection do you have?
have you considered what kind of NICs you will use (based on prior question).
I would most definitely use SCSI 15K RPM drives (4 of them or 3 with a hot spare) in a RAID 5 volume with a 128MB cache RAID 5 controller. Why in the world are you spec'ing out SATA Raptors? That's borderline ghetto for a proper server.
I'm still confused about the 8GB. Anyone got any actual numbers on memory usage for these servers? I haven't seen one since BF1942.
....
i'm sorry, but an 'unlimited budget' server for this application is not Raptors in 0+1 and dual optys w/ 8GB. that's like some sort of amd-fan-boy dream rig made of hardware the mostly won't be used.
you should be focused on where the servers will be (in a rack?), getting dual power supplies, proper network cards (possibly teamed for redundancy to multiple switches), RAID 5 SCSI with an awesome SCSI add-in card, 15K RPM SCSI drives, etc. And really, the bandwidth, peering & latency of your internet connection is the biggest variable here. i'd like to see your SCSI card have hot spare capability, and you have a spare drive or two. i'd also like to see some very nice UPS setups. an efficient backup system (either to tape or to another networked device). ........ so many other things than just processors and an absurd amount of ram. who will be supporting it and running it? is that cost irrelevant too?
http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/produc ... ached+SCSI
check out that adaptec card. very nice for server application.