click on the pict this news is from AppleInsider... A slip-up on Apple's UK online store has revealed that a Mac Pro workstation with 8 cores of processing power is inching closer to a release. "Now quad-core or 8-core processing power," read a caption next to the company's existing Mac Pro offering. "Configure yours today." The blooper corroborates an exclusive AppleInsider report from last October which first laid out the Mac maker's plans for an 8-core Mac Pro. Although development of the system was reported to have wrapped up some time ago, Apple has thus far decided to defer the release until closer to the launch of Adobe's Creative Suite 3.0 (CS3) software bundle. The new Mac Pro, people familiar with the systems have said, will achieve 8-core status through the adoption of two Intel quad-core Xeon 5300 series "Clovertown" chips. ...make room on your credit cards! :)

That 1700 pound price is VERY suspiciously low.  A single Clovertown Xeon all by itself is very expensive.  I'd expect that is an absolute minimum price, possibly with only a single processor installed with "room to upgrade" later.

Some apples-to-apples (heh) comparison between a large spread of Intel chips, the pair of top shelf Xeons don't really put in that great a showing:
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=x5355&page=8 dual Xeon render benchmarks
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=qx6700&page=7 single QX6700 (quad core Core 2 Extreme) render benchmarks, with similar benchmark specifications as far as I can tell, and an interesting quote:
"A single QX6700 will outperform most dual-processor, dual-core Opteron and Xeon workstations now as well."

Also be aware that you're limited by the number of threads the render engine is capable of operating in - since even Poser 7 is limited to four threads, having more than four cores won't benefit you in the slightest, although it would leave you with free processor to do other things with.  This will vary by application though.

£1699 is the price for the 2.66 Ghz dual core, dual cpu system...Apple do not make a single cpu MacPro system. It only sounds a low price because don't realise just how competitive Macs are when you compare like for like with custom built PC systems.

Cheers

That news item does not match the Apple UK store page:
http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/ukstore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=4F8E07C4&nclm=MacPro

£1700 for a "quad core" Mac Pro - it's actually 2x DUAL CORE Xeons, not quad core Clovertowns.
edit: which is exactly what Cheers just said ...

Seems that the 4-core chip is not available from Apple on any site, UK or US.  It is unlikely they're going to throw you the 4-core versions of the chips when they're released.  Note also that £1700 price is for 1gb of RAM, with each 1GB beyond that costing about £200.  Doesn't seem to be any network card included either, although that's not a very big expense.

All MacPros come with dual Gigabit Ethernet ports. 
Another plus is the option of up to 3TB of online storage...and lets not forget the ability to dual boot - be it Mac 0SX, Windows or Linux.
I have a feeling the Quad Cores will come online this spring, between now and May. Apple always seem to release in conjunction with Expo's rather than 3rd party software releases. The up and coming NAB expo (April 15), seems a good candidate for quad core release.

Cheers

Cloverton 1.6Ghz X2 = 720 bucks
Server motherboard with at least 2 PCI-E slots = 400 bucks
2GB FB-DIMM ECC RAM = 320 bucks.
+Geforce 7300 + 250GB HDD + Superdrive + casing + that premium Steve's always loved dearly= D: No way.

I considered this yesterday since insultating a pin on a socket enables overclocking, and I've heard quite good limits.

EDIT: I'm using US pricing BTW. But something nagging tells me it won't come that cheap.

networking has been built into every Mac since the Mac plus.