Do you really need a workstation?  It depends…. While I am biased, the actual investment difference between an entry level Intel-based workstation and an Intel-based business desktop with similar graphics features has compressed so much that today the answer is -------------------------------------yes you really do need a workstation. I was recently at an ISV's user meeting and workstaion vendors were demonstrating visually compelling reasons to make that leap to a workstation from a desktop.   So what is an Intel-based workstation when compared to a business desktop?  Similar to the difference between a professional athlete and recreational athlete; workstations are typically faster and smarter at what they do.  Workstations are purpose built to do a job.  They provide the necessary processing capacity, access to the professional grade graphics adapters and enough expansion to accommodate the memory capacity you need to work with a: • Bigger canvas if your are digital content creator, • Larger assemblies if your are product designer, or • More complete oil reservoirs if you are a geophysicist. But if you want to really increase the pace you can create, you may want to step up to a virtual workbench that delivers near supercomputing performance to your workstation.  That is another blog. To learn which Intel based workstation is best for your needs please use our “Mobile, Professional, Expert—Which processor is right for your workstation needs tool” on http://www.intel.com/products/workstation/processors

Ok, so you have bought into the potential benefits of simultaneous workflows from my previous blogs where organizations may choose work differently and develop parallel workflows in order to potentially:

• compress the time between an idea and a product or,

• innovate faster and deliver finished animations in less time

• or simply work on larger more complex assemblies or analyses

Ok so now it's time to say I doubt the performance is really available to get this done.

The honest answer is it depends on how much you want to stress the system, because there are limits. But Russ Sagert, Petrel Portfolio Manager from Schlumberger Information Systems suggests "workstations based on the new Intel® Xeon® 5400 series processors change the game for our customers. These new workstations featuring faster processors, larger memories, two new advanced PCI Gen2 graphics adapters give users a remarkably interactive experience and an opportunity to employ parallel geophysical workflows that combine complex large scale attribute analysis and volume visualization. Net result: Higher quality results and, better more informed decisions in less time than ever before."

Alright that is mouthful, but today's Intel® Xeon® based workstations do present the performance necessary to potentially change your game and help you innovate faster - are you game?

So what is the secret behind the performance?

The "Core" is. Not 4 cores, not 2 cores, or 8 even cores -- just Intel's new Core microarchitecture. Introduced in 2006, and extended with the availability of the Intel® Xeon® 5400 series, Intel's new Intel's new Core microarchitecture is the foundation that enables demanding users with the processing capacity and visualization capability to change the way they work and use simultaneous workflows to continuously iterate through design ideas, rapidly test via simulation, and find design errors earlier. The Intel Core Microarchitecture helps deliver the power to innovate.

Here is a quick look at some of the Intel innovations that are changing the performance game - we will discuss them more in future blogs:

• Intel® Wide Dynamic Execution - Increases performance and energy efficiency by enabling the delivery of more instructions per clock cycle and enhancing the efficiency of instruction execution.

• Intel® Advanced Digital Media Boost - Effectively doubles the instructions' execution speed compared to previous Intel based solutions and accelerates a broad range of applications, including financial, engineering, scientific video, speech and image, photo processing, and encryption software.

• Intel® Advanced Smart Cache, which is optimized for multi-core processing and reduces latency to frequently used data

• Intel® Smart Memory Access optimizes the use of the available data bandwidth from the memory subsystem and

• Intel® Intelligent Power Capability improves energy efficient performance and reduces noise and energy consumption.

• Macro Fusion combines instructions into a single instruction for execution, delivering more efficient processing and faster throughput.

Net result is Intel's new Core Microarchitecture can help you hit a high note in performance and an even higher note in innovation when you move to simultaneous workflows.

Innovation can hit a wall - ever wonder why you really want a "real" workstation?

At a recent ISV event last week in Las Vegas, I met several end users who wished they had purchased a "real" workstation - what they had bought was a high-end desktop computer with a recommended high-end graphics card. What they got was disillusionment, sub-par performance and countless support nightmares. Workstations are designed and tested for performance, stability and expandability. The software application works and it delivers on performance because it is designed to.

To level set everyone, I view the workstation as the essential technology tool for professional creators that can quickly and efficiently transform complex data into actionable information. Key words transform data and actionable information. High quality decisions can be made without delay.

Workstations, for me, represent the single most important innovation engine used by professionals to generate end customer value. As such, they are the workhorse. They must be dependable, scalable and powerful enough to get out of the way of end user innovation.

So, what gets in the way of innovation? I have my top 3.

1) First is the dreaded hour glass or the innovation inhibitor as I like to call it. To me the hour glass is one of the most dangerous innovation inhibitors. It has no place in a workstation solution. If the hour glass appears, innovation can be quickly lost or sidetracked. Creative thought is disrupted and a good idea --- well it just got away while we wait for the workstation to respond to our request.

2) Data size. Until recently, data sizes have been limited and have forced workstation users to work with small sub sets of data. The result, users often miss seeing important trends that occur in larger assemblies and or models. These missed trends, while not halting innovation, certainly play a key role in extending the time for innovation to occur as smaller data sizes limit a more complete awareness of strategic differences.

3) Perhaps the most dangerous innovation inhibitor is the one that has the least to do with technology and the most to do with how companies work. New technologies found in today's workstations have transformed these tools in to powerful workstation supercomputers. This new breed is capable of delivering near supercomputer performance at an individual's desk enabling users to quickly iterate through ideas and potentially innovate faster than ever before.

There is an old poster I remember as a kid, I think it plays here as well. The saying went something like this --- I have been rich and I have poor; rich is better. Well the same is true in workstations - I have been fast and I have been slow - fast is better. More accurately workstations with certified applications and graphics cards can help deliver the performance, stability and scalability you need to innovate faster. They can deliver the technology that gets out of the way of your users capability to innovate. Enabling them to create value faster than ever before on Intel based workstations.

High-end desktops with powerful graphics may not really be all that you want or need. In fact high-end desktop computers, while marginally less expensive, may not be, in the end, what you can afford as you potentially experience less than adequate performance and below industry average innovation.

Which can you afford?