In an xServer, a user cannot have more tha three PCI cards.
If one is a GPU and one is a Capture Card, there is no slot left for a Fibre Channel card.
In an xServe however, the drives are SaS 15,000 RPM capable with a controller card as effective as the Fibre channel controller on an xServe RAID.
Therefore, if I as a user were to configure an xServe with a System drive and then Stripe two SaS drives to create my media drive, wouldn't I be able to match the performance of a Mac Pro hooked to an xServer RAID.

I have been giving this thought but I was curious to other people's results with this. I can't loose Video input through a capture card but I also cannot give up a fast GPU. I would although prefer a small single rack with xServes in it than a bunch of racks with bulky Mac Pros in them.

Pound for Pound, do the xServes match up to the Mac Pros? Are the xServes more powerful or reliable?

What are the results?