Desktop vs. workstation: Introduction

Hi, my name's Dave Buckley, and I'm the product line manager for workstations in North America for Hewlett Packard. I'm here today to talk to you about the desktop versus the workstation. We're going to do an introduction segment to learn a little bit more about how the desktop and the workstation compare.

So, to start, let's talk about the desktop. I've drawn a little illustration of a desktop here. Let's talk about how the desktop is optimized. First, it's clearly optimized around cost. If you've got an IT manager who is looking to roll out 5,000 desktops, it's certainly important to get an $800 cost versus $1,000 or $1,200 cost.

The second area that the desktop is optimized around is image. You want to make sure that the common operating environment that every user pulls up when they fire up their computer in the morning is easy to manage across that whole desktop topology. So, stable image is important.

The third area that's important is security. You want to have decent security when it comes to your data and also your hardware. Those three optimization points are really what characterize the desktop.

Now, let's talk about the workstation. What characterizes a workstation? First and foremost, a workstation is optimized around performance. The way that a workstation delivers performance is actually three ways. First, CPU performance. Although you can buy a desktop today with dual-core technology, with a workstation you can actually get dual-socket technology as well as up to four cores. So, with CPUs in a workstation, you can bring as many as eight cores to bear on a particular problem.

Also, workstations are optimized around graphics performance. That comes in the form of video RAM. It also comes in the form of faster vector processors, so that you can do those extremely difficult graphics jobs.

The third area is I/O or input/output. What I'm talking about here is not just having a standard SATA drive like you'd have with a desktop, but also having choices when it comes to serial-attached SCSI drives as well as faster drives. Not just a 7200 rpm drive, but also a 10k or a 15k drive.

What else characterizes a workstation? Certified applications. What I'm talking about here are mission-critical applications that customers use in the engineering space or in the digital content creation space, maybe in oil and gas or geographic information systems, or even in situations you've got an office environment where it has a number of Excel Power users. You may need to have a workstation to address that problem. So, certified applications are key.

The third area that is important is expandability. When I'm talking expandability, I'm talking about slots, watts and bays. Using my illustration on the board here, I'm talking about, perhaps, the PCI card cage when it comes to slots, as well as the number of RAM slots that are available in a workstation. When I'm talking watts, I'm talking about significantly larger power supplies between a workstation and a desktop. And of course, when it comes to bays, you've got your hard drive and optical bays that characterize a workstation.

And, then, the final optimization for a workstation is around life cycle. We have a number of customers who are looking for a little bit longer life cycle with a product than they get with a desktop. So, with a desktop they may be able to get nine months or maybe even twelve on the outside. With a workstation, they're able to get between twelve or eighteen months of life cycle. This can be absolutely critical for OEM customers who are looking to extend that life cycle.

So, basically, what characterizes a desktop and a workstation is cost on a desktop side and, ultimately, performance on the workstation side.

For more information, go ahead and hit www.hp.com/go/workstation.