> The only hard to replicate piece is the six channel PCI-E SSD (cost-wise)
Not really, all you need are a motherboard supporting (fake) hardware RAID (that's almost any over $100) and a couple of good 240GB SSDs. A RAID 0 will far outperform the MacPro in random access (e.g. OS drive) and in the worst case - sequential reading - will be no more than 10% slower.
The hard to replicate part is the OS, but IMHO Linux and Windows with some UI configuration are superior.
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Not really, all you need are a motherboard supporting (fake) hardware RAID (that's almost any over $100) and a couple of good 240GB SSDs. A RAID 0 will far outperform the MacPro in random access (e.g. OS drive) and in the worst case - sequential reading - will be no more than 10% slower.
The hard to replicate part is the OS, but IMHO Linux and Windows with some UI configuration are superior.