Concept in Definition ABC

There are powerful computers and then there are workstations, literally, "workstations", which stand out for their focus highly professional and for a hardware highly powerful, thought and designed to perfectly meet the applications that demand the most processing power.

Due to their great power, the workstations are designed to carry out eminently technical and scientific tasks, and also to work with servers of all kinds

Although perhaps for many authors, connectivity is not part of a basic and minimalist definition of workstation, prioritizing power, the truth is that from the beginning, the conception of the workstation was meaningless without a connection to the corporate local network and, later, to remote servers, either on the local network or through larger networks reach, like Internet.

Through the network, and from the servers, the workstations are fed both programs and applications.

The architecture of the workstations is highly scalable, being computers that can easily change components and expand the configurations. In recent years they have specialized a lot in certain areas

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This is so because the hardware of computers in general has grown in terms of power, leaving behind the workstations of the previous generation, which is why in many cases the adoption of an ordinary (albeit powerful) PC has been chosen over a workstation.

The "paradises of the workstations”Are currently scientific tasks that require great computing power and, especially, graphics-intensive tasks that are, at heart, nothing more than mathematical calculations (back to same; velocity to execute a large number of operations math complicated).

In the rendering operations of special effects in cinema, computer animations, or CAD / CAM-like design programs (for architecture or car / aircraft design, for example) is where the workstations they have their fiefdoms

Many times, it is even possible to use GPUs (graphics cards, specifically the microchip that equips and endows them of power) to program them with techniques that are similar to those of the CPUs, without treating graphics, but data of other types.

Historically, the evolution of workstations was different from PC computers

It is a sector in which Unix and descendant operating systems have predominated, although Microsoft also played a game with its Windows until you get a piece of the cake.

Regarding architectures hardware, the workstations PCs have also differed notably from their cousins, running under Motorola 68xxx microchips (such as those that equipped the first Macs), or from architecture RISC, and later Power PC.

Currently, however, the cost and benefits of x86-64 CPUs (64-bit as the name suggests) have led workstation manufacturers to choose by a standard architecture such as this, since it does not differ in essence from that presented by domestic PCs and terminals. This does not prevent certain parts of these machines, such as graphics cards, continue to be more powerful or even specific and exclusive to this segment.

Besides in Format desktop, currently we can also find computers in portable format that are workstations.

Photos: Fotolia - bluebay2014 / sudok1