Workstation vs Desktop

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What are the differences between a workstation and a desktop?
Is it worthwhile to invest in a workstation instead of a desktop?
Armstrong

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What are the differences between a workstation and a desktop?
Is it worthwhile to invest in a workstation instead of a desktop?
Armstrong

The word “workstation” is not well defined, it is typically used to mean a personal computer with very high end graphics and lots of memory, often used for CAD or Video work.

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Hi StuartR,
Would you buy a workstation for software development and Office applications (Project, Visio, Excel, Access, etc.)?
Armstrong

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…
Would you buy a workstation for software development and Office applications (Project, Visio, Excel, Access, etc.)?
…

This question is impossible to answer.

As I said in my previous post, the term “workstation” is not well defined. Some people call the type of PC that you buy for general office work a workstation, other’s don’t.

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Would you buy a workstation for software development and Office applications (Project, Visio, Excel, Access, etc.)?

There are many factors that go into such a decision. You need to answer questions such as:

How much money can you spend?

Do you do graphics intensive work?

How many applications do you have open concurrently?

Are you actively working in the open applications?

What sort of software development?

What tools & languages?

Do you need a robust test environment?

I’m sure you can think of many more.

Joe

--Joe

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Hi StuartR,
Thanks for your clarification.
Armstrong

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Wikipedia has a discussion of a workstation in the context of computers, but the term long predates the computer era. The most prominent discussion to my mind is that in Britannica of mass production, as employed by Henry Ford, and dating from 1913 by using an assembly line. Today’s tennis match from Australia with its advertisements (in this neck of the woods) for KIA automobiles (in which I have no vested interest) shows robotic machines welding vehicles on an assembly line with no apparent human workers at the workstations in question. You might be familiar with assembly-line situation humour from Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times or Alice Kramden and Thelma Norton in a skit on The Honeymooners (in a chocolate factory).

Edited: I was in a bookstore tonight and spotted a book about I Love Lucy, and realized to my horror that it was from that show that the clip I had in mind had come (for I had seen it recently) and not The Honeymooners. Here, to set things right and with my apology, is a link to the online clip: CHOCOLATE.

The term ‘workstation’ may mean different things to different people, and may differ from generation to generation. Without writing a treatise on it, I agree with Stuart that is very loosely used, and I use it so myself. I would go so far as to call it a man-machine interface in a given location, which itself may be mobile in today’s world, and I am taking my life into my hands by using ‘man’ in the traditional universal sense.

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I think the easiest approach to this is to throw out the terminology and focus on what your needs are, that is spec out your computer to fit your needs and then buy as much over those requirements as you can afford.

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For many manufacturers, a workstation may have a server type CPU (Xeon, Opteron, etc.) and ECC (error checking) memory. Whether or not those features would have any benefit will depend on what you are doing and what O/S you want to run. they will definitely cost more.

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