Difference between Workstation, Enthusiast, High-End hardware?

[Guest]

I don't get the differences when people are describing them - some people say the Quadro video cards are workstation hardware, whereas others label the Titan X as workstation hardware, while the GTDX 1080 is designated an enthusiast or high-end piece of hardware.  It's all confusing to me.  Can someone please clarify?

[vanished]

Enthusiast is typically used to differentiate from things that are "mainstream" (ie, something you'd get in a BestBuy prebuilt).  X99 and stuff like that would be considered "enthusiast".  I'd lump a GTX 1080 in that category too since no one who isn't passionate about their gaming would have one.

 

Workstation is usually used to refer to powerful hardware designed specifically for, well, "work", as opposed to gaming (ie, rendering CAD stuff, running fluid dynamics simulations, etc.).

 

"High-End" just means anything powerful and expensive usually  

[vong]

Just now, VPrime said:

I don't get the differences when people are describing them - some people say the Quadro video cards are workstation hardware, whereas others label the Titan X as workstation hardware, while the GTDX 1080 is designated an enthusiast or high-end piece of hardware.  It's all confusing to me.  Can someone please clarify?

Well to me workstation means as the name suggests - work. Whilst enthusiast means out of reach of the regular consumer and high end being the best that regular consumers can buy.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, VPrime said:

I don't get the differences when people are describing them - some people say the Quadro video cards are workstation hardware, whereas others label the Titan X as workstation hardware, while the GTDX 1080 is designated an enthusiast or high-end piece of hardware.  It's all confusing to me.  Can someone please clarify?

The Quadro video card has a lot of Video Memory. No game can use nearly that much memory, however when doing a video render, you may need that much memory as a movie is a lot larger file size than a video game level. 

GTX 1080s are considered enthusiest because people that are enthusiastic about computers want a really fast powerful graphics card. This card doesn't have as much memory as a Quadro, but it's really fast. 

[Evanair]

Workstation hardware is generally ran through higher QC checks and designed to run 24/7 at high loads.  

 

nVidia is the only manufacturer of the Quadro line to control QC to the extent they require. 

 

There are other suttle differences in each item, such as ECC support and additional instructions with Intel Xeon CPU, as well as double floating point for Quadro where the Titan and GTX line lack the option.

[Energycore]

7 hours ago, VPrime said:

I don't get the differences when people are describing them - some people say the Quadro video cards are workstation hardware, whereas others label the Titan X as workstation hardware, while the GTDX 1080 is designated an enthusiast or high-end piece of hardware.  It's all confusing to me.  Can someone please clarify?

They're kind of different terms:

 

Workstation are computers designed with productivity in mind. The term is used especially for the very powerful ones that crunch numbers in simulations, edit video or photos, and similar, but even a low-power Office PC can be classified as a workstation. Workstation specific hardware has been heavily optimized for its use and often commands a big premium compared to similar consumer hardware.

 

Enthusiast is anyone who devotes a significant amount of time to learning, tuning, and tweaking their computer. Generally an enthusiast does research, makes informed buying decisions and wants to get the best performance they can get. Overclocking is a very common thing done by enthusiasts. The adjective has been misused with relation to hardware, but generally stuff that lets the user better take control of their hardware deserves the label of enthusiast.

 

Low, mid and high-end (mid-end often called mainstream), are more of a range for the absolute performance of hardware, and more importantly their price. We call a GTX 1080 high-end not just because it pushes 150+ fps on all AAA games in 1080p, but also because it costs fucking 600 dollars.  Low-end is often called entry-level too.

 

Examples of hardware:

 

The Asrock B150 motherboard that allows for overclocking of non-K Skylake CPUs is Consumer, Mainstream ($70-$90), and Enthusiast.

The i7-6700 CPU is generally a High-End, Consumer, non-Enthusiast part.

Watercooled video cards are generally High-End, Consumer and Enthusiast.

Xeons and ECC memory are generally classified as workstation, and for the most part non-enthusiast.

[straight_stewie]

7 hours ago, VPrime said:

I don't get the differences when people are describing them - some people say the Quadro video cards are workstation hardware, whereas others label the Titan X as workstation hardware, while the GTDX 1080 is designated an enthusiast or high-end piece of hardware.  It's all confusing to me.  Can someone please clarify?

This is a tough question, since there is no well-defined, technical difference between them. So I'll do my best to provide some general rules for differentiating the "classes" of computer hardware here:

• Enterprise Things like Tesla graphics cards and "archive" drives. These are things designed to run supercomputers and servers for enterprises and big businesses. They are designed to run full load, full speed, and full heat, 24/7 for years on end. They are the absolute most expensive and hardest to source parts.
• Workstation Things like Quadro graphics cards or even high end GTX card (like the 1080). These are designed to run single user workloads such as CAD/CAE, video/image editing/rendering, and other single user work based uses. The drivers are geared towards these purposed and, in the case of graphics cards, often don't even work well (or at all) for things like gaming. They are very reliable and pretty expensive.
• Enthusiast Extremely high end consumer components. They fit a niche market for the consumer, gamer, or DIY PC builder that craves performance and rarity. They are the upper class of consumer components. They can range from "budget" to "rich bitch" in cost and offer anywhere from acceptable performance and reliability to light workstation use. These are most of what you hear about on LTT and almost exclusively the parts used to build DIY PCs. Occasionally you will see them in high end store bought computers.
• Consumer These are geared at the layman... err, I mean, the general consumer. You will find them at your local Walmart and Best Buy. They represent the class of components that is useful for web browsing, movie watching, and very very light gaming (think, the sims). These are the cheapest of all components.

[Guest]

Workstation is actually not as suggested above. While yes, reliability does come into affect with workstation grade components, it's more to do with support for them both in a post sales capacity as well as in a functional sense.

 

Workstation parts and workstations in general will normally come with much better warranty support for them - same day or next business day replacements because they are generally being relied upon for staff to complete tasks. Those tasks don't get done = wasted staff hours = wasted money.

 

Secondly, workstation grade equipment is usually rigorously tested for compatibility with other hardware. Add in cards like RAID controllers, specialist interface cards and other similar devices are usually found to be more compatible with workstation equipment than consumer gear.

[JefferyD90]

8 hours ago, VPrime said:

I don't get the differences when people are describing them - some people say the Quadro video cards are workstation hardware, whereas others label the Titan X as workstation hardware, while the GTDX 1080 is designated an enthusiast or high-end piece of hardware.  It's all confusing to me.  Can someone please clarify?

So in the OEM market space you have about 5 different levels of computers:

 

1. Entry Level.

     Celeron-Pentium or E-Series-A4

     RAM Minimums

     Integrated Graphics

     Storage > Speed

     <250 watts

2. Entertainment.

     Pentium-i3 or A4-A8

     Recommended RAM

     "Beefy" Integrated Graphics (like Intel HD530+ or AMD R5+ or GTS)

     Storage = Speed

     <300 watts

3. Mainstream.

     i3-i5 or A8-FX

     Above Recommended RAM

     Intel HD530+ or AMD R5 or GTS - AMD R7 or GTX

     Storage = Speed

     <450 watts

4. Enthusiast.

     i5-i7

     Above Recommended RAM and increased speeds

     AMD R7 or GTX - AMD R9 - GTX

     Storage < Speed

    >450 watts

5. Workstation.

     i7-Xeon

     Double Recommended RAM + and increased speeds and error correcting

     FirePro or Quatro

     Multiple Storage Solutions

    >500 watts