What is a Workstation (and are they worth buying, used)?

[Whiffle]

Sorry if this kind of a stupid question, but I have only just realised that a workstation is not just any PC that happens to be used in a work environment.

What are the differences between a pre-built workstation and a PC that you can you build yourself from parts bought online?

The reason I ask is that I stumbled across loads of used workstations, with amazing specs, for very little money.

If I wanted a machine, just for some gaming, are these worth it?

 

[Hawk Tuah]

They're a great way to get a decent spec PC for not much money. The drawback can be that many of them use proprietary motherboards, PSUs, connectors etc. So upgrading can be a little tricky.

I used an ex corporate HP EliteDesk with extra ram, SSD and a 1050TI for many years as my main gaming PC. Worked a treat.

 

[Armageus]

If you are talking about Pre-built Workstations (e.g. things like Dell Precision, HP Z Series, Lenovo Thinkstation, Fujitsu Celsius), then the main difference between these and off the shelf parts, is that they are almost "mini servers" - they feature a lot of components and design choices to make them more reliable, perform better, or offer more expansion.

Most workstations will offer things such as RAID controllers, hot swappable drives / fans, ECC RAM, Xeon processors, whilst still being designed to be used as a desktop PC (e.g. with tolerable fan noise etc unlike a server), and are often validated for specific software e.g. CAD or 3D modelling software etc.



HP Elitedesk / Dell Optiplex etc aren't really workstations (although often sold 2nd hand as such), but are just business class/enterprise desktop PC. The main benefit of such being commonality of components across an estate, and available of spare parts (although as mentioned by @Bug One they are often proprietary, and as such expensive or difficult to get hold of without support contracts etc)

 

[Tetras]

A lot of workstations are built with entry level xeon parts, that you could build yourself if you wanted to (albeit at a hefty mark-up from OEM prices). The high-end workstations will use HEDT parts or be entry level servers. If you don't know if you need one it's probably best not to build one, not least because buying these things yourself costs A LOT more than OEMs pay, just look at the price of Xeon W CPUs or Quadro GPUs.

Buying a used one can be a great deal, but only if you need it, otherwise they tend to perform less well (especially in efficiency terms), compared to desktops. Workstation and server parts are often not that great for gaming because of the lower clocks on CPUs and memory and Quadros (at the same price) are way lower spec than the desktop version.

 

[EsaT]

The reason I ask is that I stumbled across loads of used workstations, with amazing specs, for very little money.

If I wanted a machine, just for some gaming, are these worth it?

If normally old for used business PC, single core performance is outdated for gaming.
In fact if using some entry level server CPU, clock speeds of those are usually lower than in desktop CPUs of the time.