M2
Alternative system-
12 Core Mac Pro- $4,999
Processor- Two 2.93GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” (12 cores) [Add $1,200.00]
Memory- 64GB (8x8GB) [Add $3,550.00]
Mac Pro Raid card [Add $700.00]
Hard drive bay 1/2- 512GB solid-state drive [Add $1,250.00]
512GB solid-state drive [Add $1,400.00]
Graphics- ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB [Add $200.00]
Optical drive- Two 18x SuperDrives [Add $100.00]
Display- Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel) [Add $999.00]
Mouse- Apple Magic Mouse + Magic Trackpad [Add $69.00]
Keyboard and documentation- Apple Wireless Keyboard (Japanese) & User's Guide [Add $20.00]
Quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card [Add $1,000.00]
Total- $16,486.00
Overall I would choose the first system, as it is much cheaper compared to what you get.
Hard drive is cheaper, and you get plenty enough hard drive space for what the computer is going to be used for, again with the graphics card, you get high quality graphics with the workstation computer.
The keyboard and mouse cost more because they’re apple; they have the exact same function as the normal mouse/keyboard.
The only positive thing you’d get from going for the apple computer would be a faster processor, which makes the computer run faster, but with a good hard-drive/graphics card the computer will run fast anyway.