I have some idea of what I am doing, the pecking order of these parts, and I have already decided on the Mac Pro based on my needs. But I wanted to better understand the differences between the two, as different as they may be. Knowing what to buy for your needs is different than understanding why they are different. I do however have the basics down for sure.
I guess I wanted to see if there were more technical reasons other than just adding up the specs. For example: If I have a quad core Xeon at 2.8GHz, and a Quad core Q9450 at I think 2.66GHz, is the clock speed the only difference? Also, is the motherboard just the sum of it's RAM type, bus speed, and CPU socket?
The review of this Asus board was a glowing one. Other than a lower (compared to the Mac Pro) 8GB RAM limit, and the price of DDR3, I like it. So it did catch my eye. I like the Mac Pro for the 32GB RAM limit, the use of DDR2 (even if it's error corrected), and the raw power of 2 CPUs, which is 8 cores, But I don't know if the second CPU is worth the cost. It is not like you get twice the CPU power. I may just order the Mac Pro with one processor. But you only save $500.00 USD for dropping the one CPU.
And the Mac Pro is not cheap for me, but we all have to decide what we are willing to strive for. There is a lot I don't buy in order to buy a Mac Pro.