The Mac Pro "Eight Core" 3.0 (Early 2008), is technically classified as "made-to-order" configuration of the Mac Pro "Eight Core" 2.8 (Early 2008), but is also listed as a separate model for easy reference. Apart from processor speed, both models share identical specifications.
The Mac Pro "Eight Core" 3.0 (Early 2008) features two 3.0 GHz Quad Core 45-nm Intel Xeon E5472 (Harpertown/Penryn) processors with 12MB of L2 cache per processor (each pair of cores shares 6 MB), a 128-bit SSE4 SIMD vector engine, and 1.6 GHz "64-bit dual independent frontside buses."
The standard configuration featured 2GB of 800 MHz DDR2 EEC "fully-buffered" FB-DIMM memory, a 320 GB (7200 RPM, 8 MB cache) 3Gb/s Serial ATA hard drive, a double-layer 16X "SuperDrive", and an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR3 memory and two dual-link DVI ports.
Expansion includes two external 5.25" "optical" bays (one available by default), four internal 3.5" "cable-free, direct attach" hard drive bays (three available by default), two PCIe x4 slots, and two PCIe 2.0 x16 slots (one free with one graphics card installed). Port selection includes dual Gigabit Ethernet, five USB 2.0 ports, two Firewire "400" ports, two Firewire "800" ports, and optical digital audio in/out, and more. Bluetooth 2.0+EDR comes standard, AirPort Extreme (802.11g/n) and a modem are optional.
In comparison to the original Mac Pro which it superseded, the "Early 2008" Mac Pro employs an enhanced architecture with improved speed and efficiency processors with larger L2 caches, a more advanced vector engine, faster frontside buses (1.6 GHz instead of 1.33 GHz), faster memory (800 MHz instead of 667 MHz), compatibility with optional faster Serial Attached SCSI drives (with the installation of the Mac Pro RAID card), and two 16-lane PCIe 2.0 slots.