More Evidence of Upcoming Xserve Refresh?

AppleInsider follows up on yesterday's report regarding an update to Apple's Xserve offering with additional evidence for the new model. According to the report, a user has discovered text strings in the latest Mac OS X 10.5.7 beta identifying an unreleased "Xserve3,1" model, as well as references to Marvell's Yukon 2 Ethernet controller chips suitable only for Apple's Xserve line but not found in the current model.

In particular, AppleInsider reader Adam has discovered references to an "Xserve 3,1" inside the AppleTyMCEDriver extension file currently seeding to Mac OS X developers as part of Mac OS X 10.5.7.

The current incarnation of the Xserve, introduced in January of 2008, has long identified itself as "Xserve 2,", meaning "Xserve 3,1" stands as an machine ID indentifier [sic] for an unreleased family of Xserves -- almost certainly the upcoming Nehalem models.