Considering an upgrade. If I go with enthusiast board it will be 1366 6-Core Extreme CPU, even though I would not have much interest in overclocking. If I go server board, it will be a Supermicro dual-Xeon server board that can handle the 6-core Xeons as a pair. Ouch on the price!

Obviously, as far as the Xeons go, there won't be any overclocking, even for a few quick tests and such.

In either case I will be running Win 7 Pro 64-bit as the OS, and the systems will be liquid cooled. I have the appropriate water cooling equipment, PSU's, ATX/E-ATX cases, etc.

Any explicit advantage to either chip? I'm not an overclocker, but I do want speed at stock ratings. Are the Xeons just more heavily validated and tested?

I have not ventured into the world of server boards a lot, but those I have used from Supermicro I really like since they allow so much greater control, such as BIOS-level remote desktop, etc.

Xeon processors function better with multi threaded data handling like in a server side to deal with multiple access/data requests. I would stick with a desktop six core as getting a xeon processor would be impractical and you wouldn't be able to get the full potential out of it unless you want to turn your computer into a server, ha ha.

My only thought was using the Xeons in more of a workstation environment, where I might want to be transcoding video, working with Office apps, other apps, etc. that could take advantage of 12 physical and 12 HT cores.

It would not be in a high-transactional server environment such as a web server, email server, etc., more for a workstation I can't practically bog down.

Then if you're only using it in that environment, a Xeon hex core would be an expensive investment in something that wouldn't be taking full advantage of them. A desktop hex core would be perfectly fine in the environment you're using it in. In addition, the software you've listed off there wouldn't take up more than 3 physical cores for it's processing, i myself would stick with a desktop hex core

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P.s. Even Super high performance games (i.e. supreme commander 1 & 2) wouldn't be taking more than 3 cores in todays standard.

I appreciate the advice. Thank you.

No problem =]

As a note for the most reasonable xeon hex core, you can pick up an Intel i7 hex core extreme edition for a similar price and the motherboards are a lot cheaper too.

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Or for a bit less money the non-extreme version of i7 (I think its 970) would be sufficient.