Is it better? oh yeah :)

 

Workstation- Dual processors, xeon processors at that (up to 3.6ghz) 

Optiplex - one processor, pentium 4 (up to 3.4ghz)

 

The video cards that dell will sell you are much better for the workstations as well. That's pretty much the main difference, they both have pci-e 16x now. The only other difference really is that the workstation has an integrated scsi controller. I'm a big fan of sata so that wouldn't really interest me anyway.

 

You might want to find out if that software you use is multithreaded. If it is, the workstation system will really make it shine. And personally, I believe the overall quality of the cases on the 670 is nicer and the motherboard itself uses higher quality components.