R&D by no means requires what you have spec'd. Dual 1TB's on RAID1 with 2GB Ram on each machine would suffice for basically any application that you throw at it. That is of course my opinion, and I know I would never see a need to spend that kinda cash for a system that is just R&D. If you had a platform that was already running that was carrying a load, then yes such a setup could prove worthy, but then you get into the whole ordeal of load balancing, router configuration, and clusters. see more also, you can build any rocketship powerhouse you want, but if you put it on the wrong launch platform, meaning your incoming/outgoing connection with adequate throughput, then all you have done is spent an ass bucket load of money for something that looks good on whitepaper.

Regards,
DosDawg