[PLUG] Motherboard recommendations

[Rogan Creswick]

I'm putting together a linux compute/shell server for my office (of
windows users -- one step at a time :).

We've need a box like this for a while, and the key features are:

   * Lots of ram  (we often load multi-gb data sets--4-8gb is minimum)
   * 64-bit arch, so a jvm can actually address the ram (32-bit jvms
are essentially unable to use more than 3gb)
   * Large & fast disks (I'm looking at 2 2TB WD. 7.2k rpm sata drives.)
   * more than one core / cpu.

I think I have a pretty good idea of what we want (list is below) but
I really don't have a clue re: motherboards (and, by extension,
everything else I've selected may need to change.)

The big questions are:

   * Does the formfactor really matter? Space is not an issue, but it
may be difficult to find a place for a rack mount (Our "rack" only has
a front mounting bracket, and no rear supports -- it just holds
switches and a kvm)

   * Memory: quantity or speed? I know this is very hard to answer
without knowing exactly how we'll be using the machine, but it's also
very hard to know exactly how we'll be using the machine...  Roughly
-- When we can fill 8gb of memory, we'll need more than 16 -- so we
won't be able to write sloppy code just because we have loads of ram
(which is really too bad .. that would be a huge time/money savings if
we could).  The only difference is probably going to be the number of
distinct disk reads.  When doing massive data processing on this
machine, very little will be going on, so swapping out isn't going to
be much of an issue (we can just ensure that the environment we're
running in fits in memory, and manage the disk access on our own--the
stuff we do makes that feasible, and often necessary.)  So, that seems
to mean to me, that the only difference is how many times we need to
read/write to/from disk, *not* the amount of data we actually
transfer.  Given that the speed difference seems pretty substantial
(ddr800 vs. ddr1066), faster ram seems the way to go, but, I may
simply not know how to configure a system to use 16gb of ddr1066+ ram.
 Any feedback would be great!

Here's the system I'm considering:

(+
$ cost
144 ; ram: 8 gigs
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231195
80  ; mobo: (micro atx?!)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128379
193 ; AMD Quad-core Phenome II & fan:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.163672
600 ; drives (2 2TB WD SATA)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136344
20  ; dvd/cd
; case? (micro atx?) & powersupply
)
$1037 ;; well within our budget.  What else would you add / change?

Thanks!
Rogan