Workstation vs Desktop

[quattro04]

Desktop or Workstation, which is more powerful...
Someone told me that workstations are more powerfull than their desktop counterparts. Is this true?
The same person even told me that a P4 wrokstation can only be compared to a desktop version with a quad core proc.

Im trying to compare my desktop with the workstation at home:
desktop:
Core2Duo E6550 @ stock
3GB DDR2 800
160GB 7200 Hard Drive
8500GT 512MB vid card

workstation: (HP)
P4 3.2 EE
2GB DDR2
320GB 7200 Hard Drive
FirePro vid card

So who do you think is more powerful? I know the workstation will beat the desktop hands down in photo/video editing, but who will win when it comes to virus scanning, winrar extraction, etc....

PS. I'm sorry if this is posted on the wrong side of the forums.

 

[Helloworld_98]

first that is in no way a workstation PC and the desktop on that list will own it hands down.

modern workstations normally have a couple of Xeon or Opteron quad's with a tonne of ram and workstation graphics card.

 

[WR2]

Desktop or Workstation, which is more powerful...
Someone told me that workstations are more powerfull than their desktop counterparts. Is this true?
The same person even told me that a P4 wrokstation can only be compared to a desktop version with a quad core proc.

A P4 workstation is definitely not a modern workstation.
A weak workstation will not beat a powerful desktop.

Depending on what program is used the P4/FirePro (what model??) might beat a E6550/8500GT in video editing, and maybe photo editing. But it would be close - not a "hands down" slam dunk. Depending on the programs being uses the E6550/8500GT could even be faster.



Intel Pentium 4 EE 955 3.46Ghz CPU finished AVG Anti Virus 7.5 scan in 115 seconds while E6550 2.3Ghz finished in 81 seconds.

HDTV Playback 60 seconds of Casino Royale with PowerDVD 7.3 processed in: 32.5 seconds by E6550 and 46.2 seconds by Pentium 4 EE 955 3.46Ghz

(from the THG CPU charts 2008 Q1) THG CPU charts E6550 vs P4 955 EE

 

[quattro04]

I can't remember the model no. of the workstation but it is a workstation an HP to be precise. Forgot to add that it's already old. about 3-4 years old. Also i think I may be wrong about the proc. I know it's a P4 it says so in device manager but when i open task manager, it has 2 cpu usage graphs.

 

[hollett]

Entry level workstations (and what you are describing was entery level 3-4 years ago) are nothing more than good desktops.

A current top line workstation will have 2 quad core Xeons (8 cores, 16 threads) with 100Gb of ram and fast SAS raid arrays using a pair of high end graphics cards with up to 4Gb of ram each.

however in 5-6 years time todays high end workstation will be no faster than the desktops of the time.