We break down several recommended workstation options for your organisation.
If you’re looking to find a powerful workstation to add to your business, then you’ve come to the right place – here we list the very best workstations you can buy in 2017.
Before you go buying a workstation, banish those thoughts of big hefty desktop monstrosities – these days, workstations are sleek and trendy machines that still provide a powerful punch for most applications. They’re useful tools for designers, engineers, financial analysts and researchers running more demanding applications, like rendering complex graphics, financial analysis and computations and digital content creation
From small form factor models to powerhouses, from all-in-ones to one for all, there’s bound to be one for you if you’re in the market.
At the bottom of this page you’ll also find our list of the best online shops for buying workstations – so purchasing the perfect workstation for your business has never been easier!
A classic workstation for a great price
The 5000 series of Dell’s Precision Tower workstations don’ t throw quite as much power at you as the 7000 series (which are also featured in this list) , but that means they come in at a more affordable price.
The Precision Tower 5810 offers excellent power levels, with flexibility thanks to Dell’s website, which lets you configure the setup you’ re buying so that it perfectly suits your needs. Dell has a great reputation for business PCs, so you know you’ re in safe hands if you buy one of these.
Affordable workstation
Acer does a good line in workstations, and most of them are pretty affordable. The Acer Veriton X2640G SFF isn’ t the most powerful of workstations, but it will do the trick if you need a dependable machine for most day-to-day tasks.
There’s nothing particularly flashy about this workstation – but sometimes that’s just what you need.
Another great workstation from HP
HP comes out with another excellent workstation that features plenty of power in a solidly-built machine that is completely dependable. HP’s reputation for excellent business products continues with this workstation, and we think you’ d be very pleased if you bought this device for your business.
The only problem with this workstation is that there’s limited storage space – shipping with just 256GB of space.
The good news is that at least this hard drive is a solid state device, which means it runs much faster than a traditional spinning hard drive. You can also add a larger hard drive later on.
Worth an update
An upgrade to the Mac Pro is imminent so you might want to hold on. But when it comes to the quintessential workstation, nothing comes near to this monolith. How Apple has been able to pack so much firepower into such a small volume almost defies the laws of physics. The current model, though, is well past its prime.
It packs a 3-year old Intel Ivy-Bridge Xeon processor with up to 64GB DDR3 ECC RAM and 1TB storage (no RAID option though) . Its two AMD FirePro D500 GPUs are likely to be the weakest link in the system, however, and even the top of the range model doesn’t meet the minimum requirements to run the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift VR platform. It’s also far more expensive than a comparable Windows-based workstation.
A unique specimen
There’s no equivalent to the HP Z1 G3 on the market. The Z1 family was possibly brought to the market in order to compete with (or at least provide an alternative to) the Apple iMac which doesn’t provide the same sort of professional-grade components.
Using a mixture of laptop components (memory and 2.5-inch storage solutions) combined with an enterprise-grade desktop Intel Xeon CPU is an interesting alternative which we’d like others to explore, even in the laptop segment.
For now, the Z1 G3 remains the only viable option if you are looking for a transportable workstation with an all-in-one form factor. Oh and regarding the price, it comes with a 4K monitor, Thunderbolt ports, HP’s nifty Remote Graphics Software and a three-year onsite warranty, upgradable to five with defective media retention.
Pint-sized power
This is HP’s entry level workstation and one which is very keenly priced with a very compact form factor (about 11L) . It’s hard to believe that the Z240 has an Intel Core i7-6700 CPU with 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard disk drive. There’s even an optical drive. The company’s engineers have managed to deliver a system that weighs less than 6Kg and somehow has 20 (yes, 20) connectors and expansion slots (not all of them empty of course) .
It even has four DIMM slots to take full advantage of dual-channel technology. As for the rest of the HP workstation family, this one comes with the Remote Graphics Software as well as a three-year onsite warranty bundled. The only major compromise is the fact that it will only take low profile graphics cards. HP also offers the option to buy the workstation for as little as £16 per month excluding VAT.
Back to basics
Lenovo told us recently that they went back to the drawing board in order to get the new generation of ThinkStation ready. And one of the products to come from this process was the P310, an entry level workstation which is designed to offer the level of customisation and attention to detail usually found on far more expensive products. It has a modular design with integrated handles to help move it around, and inherits the Flex Module from its bigger brothers.
That solution allows users to mix and match the components and parts that they need, and this includes useful legacy ports like FireWire or eSata. The £900 model comes with a three-year onsite warranty, an Intel Xeon E3 CPU, a pair of 1TB hybrid hard disk drives, Windows 10 Pro and a discrete Nvidia NVS 310 graphics card with two DisplayPorts.
Workstation behemoth
At the opposite end of Lenovo’s portfolio is the mighty P910, a workstation that offers one or two Xeon E5 CPUs; there’s no E3 here and definitely no consumer parts. It is expensive, industrial in its looks, yet functional in its design. And when we say expensive, we mean it. A fully specced model with 28 cores, half a terabyte of RAM, six half terabyte SSDs and two Nvidia Quadro M5000 cards in SLI will cost you around £15,000. You can pack even more in, but you will have to do it over the phone.
The P910 uses patented Tri-channel cooling to keep the main components from overheating, which requires fewer fans and should, therefore in theory, translate to less downtime. As for most other workstations, you won’t need a single tool to swap components and there are no cables or plugs to worry about.
