Splitting build cross the network?

Is there a known solution for splitting build process cross the network machines?

Use case:

We are an average software development company. We own around 50 development workstations (Quad Core 2.66Ghz, 4 GB ram, 200 GB raid). No need to tell that at any single moment not every machine is loaded to the max.

There are 5 to 15 projects running simultaneously at any single moment. Obviously all of them are continuously build on server, than deployed to proper environment. Single project build is taking from 3 to 15 minutes.

The problem: Whenever we build 5 projects in a row the last project is going to be ready after around 25 - 50 minutes. Building in parallel does not solve the problem (build is only a part of the game, than you need to deploy, run tests etc.)

YES the correct solution is to add another build server, but "That involv开发者_如何学运维es buying new Expensive hardware, and we already spent a lot!". Yea, right(damn them)!

Anyway. What about splitting build among developers workstation? Lets say whenever we need to build project "A" we check 5 workstations and start build on all that are not overloaded. The build can be canceled by a developer if he really needs all the power of his machine as long as there is at least 1 machine that is still building. After build is finished deployment can be performed to a proper environment (hosted on some server, not on workstation :) ). The bigger the company the more this makes sense to me.

Anyone tried something like this? Are there any good practices? Any helpful software?

(90% of the projects are .net C#, platform - Windows)

You can also check our Parabuild at http://www.viewtier.com - it allows to designate a set of machines as a build farm. Works practically on any platform. It looks like that's what you are looking for.