Computer Workstations / Cad Workstation / CAD Computers

What is the difference between a Cad Workstation and a Standard Pc?

It can be argued that a computer workstation is no different than a standard Pc or personal computer, however while this is indeed true to the uninitiated and at first glance, it is far from the truth when you start to compare an off the shelf or clone unit with a proper CAD workstation.

And if anyone tries to tell you different then they are sadly lacking in the knowledge they think they have.

It is a bit like comparing a sports car with a standard family saloon i.e. they both have a 2.0 litre engine, they both have suspension, they both have 4 wheels and of course 4 tyres and brakes, so they are the same right?

Not so! A sports car will be tuned better performance, it will have better and more robust components, it will have better cooling and better airflow and the engine will produce more power.

Modern formula one cars are restricted currently for example to 2.4 litre but I doubt if anyone would argue that a 4.6 litre Jaguar would perform better.

Cad Computer v Personal Computer - What's The Difference?

Exactly the same analogy applies to comparing a workstation to a clone or standard Pc and without getting too technical here you need to go down to component level to really understand the difference.

In brief typical component differences will be the quality of the motherboard and chipset, the performance and specification of the processor (engine). Memory is often different as well having error checking and correcting capabilities to maintain the stability of the cad geometry or a complex calculation.

In addition a cad workstation will need to work at an order of magnitude harder than an office Pc during its life time, so will be stressed much harder and will perform hotter requiring better cooling.

Hard drive speeds for Cad workstations and Cad computers need to be much quicker (with a larger cache) than an office machines, as there is a world of difference between opening a word document and even a small cad file that may compose of a hundred parts or in the case of large Cad files tens of thousands of separate files.

CAD Graphics Cards

Graphics requirements will also be different and Cad graphics cards will have specially optimised drivers designed to work specifically with specialist applications in most cases.

Other important considerations will also be the amount of physical computer memory the application will need and equally do you need two core processors, quad core processors or multiple quad core processor or even a 64 – bit operating system?

Different specialist software applications will have different requirements for the hardware that will help them run their best and to ignore these needs is like putting diesel in a performance petrol engine, it will stifle the performance of the software without question.

Unless you are an expert about the specialist software in use in your business or the business you are supporting, the best advice we can possibly give (we won’t be the ones that benefit from it) is to make sure you engage, have discussions with and take advice from the software reseller.

This software can cost up to tens of thousands of pounds, and in many cases training the operator will have required a further investment often running into the thousands.

To then try to run it on inappropriate hardware just to save £300- or £400 a year in hardware costs is both foolhardy and can cost a business tens of thousands or more in lost productivity and profitability in reality.

Related Topics

64 - Bit Computing - What is it & Does it Matter? 

What are the advantages of 64 – bit operating systems?

What are the benefit of multi-core processors? (coming soon)

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