One critical thing is that (it seems to me) that servers are rack-mounted and don't necessarily have as much in the way of expansion slots. The workstations are generally towers that are stand alone, quiet, and have reasonable expansion and ability to service. Rack mounted servers are pretty loud (they use really powerful fans).
I think you may want to assess the cost differential before dismissing the T7910s (if you have, forgive this note). I think that you can get a lot more power for your dollar with a T7910. Its what I have (dual 2699A CPU, 128Gb, 2080Ti). That said, if you need Thunderbolt 3 or some other things unique to later designs, I think you'll need to bite the bullet and get the later model.
A friend just bought a dual Epyc machine (not dell). 2Tb. Triple 3090s. About $35K though. My machine benchmarks at about 60% of that. But it cost less than 2K.
a server works with the OS of your choice. But usually these are rack-mounted and implement other unattended monitorless solutions, particularly relying on external air-conditioned environment. energy efficient multicore CPUs and other components are prefered;meanwhile workstations utilize top-clocked Xeon-W series CPUs for user-attended per-case design-work. Normally you would not like buying a server for design work.
I think that the main point here is how you are going to deploy the units. Servers are usually made to be stored in a rack ( since the idea is to be efficient with space and have more in the same place ) and rely on NOISY fans for cooling.
If you plan to just swap workstations located under desks with servers to be located similarly, people will end getting frustrated by the amount of noise generated.
Yes, in my limited experience with servers, they are very noisy, almost like a vacuum cleaner.
And disconnecting a few fans to reduce noise may void warranty.
Also, I noticed on the Dell website for configuring a custom T440 system, out of the various OS options, there was none for windows 10. So, is use with windows 10 guaranteed?
WizardOfBoz2
2 Intern
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173 Posts
0
August 26th, 2021 19:00
This seems to explain the differences: https://www.n-able.com/blog/servers-vs-workstations
One critical thing is that (it seems to me) that servers are rack-mounted and don't necessarily have as much in the way of expansion slots. The workstations are generally towers that are stand alone, quiet, and have reasonable expansion and ability to service. Rack mounted servers are pretty loud (they use really powerful fans).
I think you may want to assess the cost differential before dismissing the T7910s (if you have, forgive this note). I think that you can get a lot more power for your dollar with a T7910. Its what I have (dual 2699A CPU, 128Gb, 2080Ti). That said, if you need Thunderbolt 3 or some other things unique to later designs, I think you'll need to bite the bullet and get the later model.
A friend just bought a dual Epyc machine (not dell). 2Tb. Triple 3090s. About $35K though. My machine benchmarks at about 60% of that. But it cost less than 2K.
Andy812
2 Intern
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202 Posts
0
August 26th, 2021 19:00
a server works with the OS of your choice. But usually these are rack-mounted and implement other unattended monitorless solutions, particularly relying on external air-conditioned environment. energy efficient multicore CPUs and other components are prefered;meanwhile workstations utilize top-clocked Xeon-W series CPUs for user-attended per-case design-work. Normally you would not like buying a server for design work.
mazzinia_
6 Professor
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1.5K Posts
0
August 27th, 2021 03:00
I think that the main point here is how you are going to deploy the units. Servers are usually made to be stored in a rack ( since the idea is to be efficient with space and have more in the same place ) and rely on NOISY fans for cooling.
If you plan to just swap workstations located under desks with servers to be located similarly, people will end getting frustrated by the amount of noise generated.
Seagate_Kalpak
1 Rookie
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3 Posts
0
August 27th, 2021 06:00
Thanks for the replies.
Yes, in my limited experience with servers, they are very noisy, almost like a vacuum cleaner.
And disconnecting a few fans to reduce noise may void warranty.
Also, I noticed on the Dell website for configuring a custom T440 system, out of the various OS options, there was none for windows 10. So, is use with windows 10 guaranteed?