The difference in price is probably due to the quality of the preamps.

What do you want to do with the desk ?

How are you intending to set up your studio ?

If you are not intending to record everything simultaneously, you may be better off spending the money on a dedicated one or two channel preamp. and shooting streight into what ever is recording.

Im using both Cakewalk Sonar XL and a Korg D1600 and Im blissfully desk free however I am limited to recording 8 tracks simultaneously (at 32 bit). I use the D1600 as a sort of desk and export files to Sonar for mixing and mastering.