Maximum PC

Hey,

I hope this is the correct forum to post this in... I'm an aspiring CG artist, and am toying with the idea of building my own "cheap" render farm (I say toying, because I know that "cheap" is a relative word). I work in the IT office at my local community college, managing and setting up computers for use around the school. I have also built a number of High end gaming/Workstation comps for my own personal use - in other words, im very familiar with computer hardware. However, I'm having a lot of difficulty deciding on the best way to approach this potential project. I have two questions:

1. What would give me the best Processing power/price: a larger number of lesser Computers, or a smaller number of higher end computers? If people think "fewer/high-end" is a better route, then ignore the next question.
2. If people think "More/Lower-end" then my next question is, what do people suggest for hardware - namely CPUs, that are capable but cheap?

I wish I could give a price range, but at this point I'm not really sure of a fair price range... any suggestions would be welcome.

I wish I knew more about render farms as I love watching the CGI process but alas I had to do some research. I'm not completely sure on the set-up but from what I have read:

link for quote
In my opinion I would say a i7-2600(k) would be perfect for this task multi-threaded and low price(by comparison to a x58)!