Our RIP servers
We have 3 RIP Servers, all custom built by yours truly.
All are dual AMD Opterons, 4GB RAM, 4 10Krpm Raptor Drives. We use Onyx 6.5 so your program may require different specs, but these work great for us.
The Raptors don't put off as much heat as you would think. So as long as you have good case fans you should be golden.
I chose the AMD Opterons because they were flat out best bang for the buck. The HDD are setup so that the OS, the incoming art and the output for each printer is writing to it's own disk. This keeps things moving very smoothly. It also adds som redundency incase a machine goes down.
Out newest press theTJ8300 from HP Scitex is a beast, we just ripped a tractor trailer and the files were almost 20GB for the sides, back and front. Crazy part is is takes less than an hr to print an entire Trailer. The TJ does 4300 sq ft an hour.
What new machine are you getting?