I pretty much have it all figured out. Just getting a verification on this.

Got the barebone build down. Really just a case with a good MOBO, crappy Sempron CPU, 1GB RAM, good cards, and a bootable Linux build off a flash drive.

The cards... 5830s? Or is there something more cost effective at this point in time?
And as far as Linux distributions go, are there builds with mining in mind?

Last question, would it be better to build two of the same setups with 2 GPUs in it, or find a board that can fit an absurd amount of cards? And do PCIe bus limitations down the board when in use have diminishing returns on hash rate?