I don't count myself among the hardware gurus. My particular estimation is that you have a good plan. Fast CPU, decent ram. Some notes: Poser lets windows control RAM access. So this is going to be controlled by the size of your virtual memory space (which should be set to a bit over 2 gig per machine, fixed, not controlled by OS). Assuming XP or win2K is used (both are still NT base), you'll want to use two drives in each system for best performance (server style set up). THese are physical drives -- one for OS, one for all temp and swap file operations. SInce they are rendering systems, add a third drive for storage if you are going to render to the system. Raid won't do you a damn bit of good insofar as performance. Go cheap. Either board will work. Kinda pricey, though. For something that just chugs, all you need is somethign that works, not that gets fancy. The multiple drives thing is strictly for squeezng the most performance out of the system possible. Since they are strictly renderboxes, a single drive partitioned would like do ok, and yeah -- you should get an integrated board if at all possible. For what you are describing, the only things that matter are CPU, RAM, and system set up. Everything else is dumped.

thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, one non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin with. (Carlyle)