Leading-edge hardware boosts productivity and delivers a great return on investment
Your company has access to great engineers and designers with some even better ideas. By harnessing the power of modern technology, you can help their concepts come to life.
Creative professionals, however, are only as capable as the hardware and software they are able to use everyday. And too many companies still constrain the potential of their designers by an over-reliance on out-dated and under-performing technology.
If your business is running professional applications on a standard PC, then you are not giving your designers the best tools for the job. There is another way – and by moving to a workstation platform, your employees can use technology to make the most of their capabilities.
Spending money to ensure a great return
You’ve spent a large amount training your engineers and designers. You wouldn’t cut corners acquiring the best talent and you can’t afford to save money on capital expenditure either.
Great design professionals need the best possible kit. Professional software licenses need to run on high-spec hardware. A single designer experiencing downtime of 1.6 hours a week could cost a business $10,000 a year, according to research from Dunn and Bradstreet.
In the end, the success of a hardware purchase – just like any capital asset – is related to the overall return on investment (ROI). Workstations score big positives in two key areas – first, the performance of the machine is higher than a traditional PC, so that workers are more productive at key times.
Second, the high quality technology in a workstation means your investment is likely to support high quality design for much longer than a PC. Powerful processing and graphics, plus high reliability, mean the total cost of ownership is far lower in workstation hardware.
Best of all, high-spec workstations prices are now comparable to standard – and much lower-performing – desktop PCs. Add in additional productivity features, such as those related to graphics, processing and optimisation – and it’s easy to see why workstations offer a much better ROI than a traditional desktop PC.
Focusing on the productivity benefits of a workstation
Professional graphics require a high performance computer, far in excess of the capabilities associated to consumer-grade desktop PCs. Top manufacturers will provide excellent graphics cards. A good rule of thumb is to look for a card that is capable of delivering more than 30 frames per second across key applications.
Processing power really matters, too. Dell Precision workstations, for example, support a wide array of processor options, including 6th Generation Intel Core processors and Intel Xeon processors, featuring Intel Turbo Boost Technology. Ally processing grunt to Reliable Memory Technology Pro, which is exclusive to Dell, and your business will be able to respond swiftly to memory errors.
There is no point spending time and money on a technology upgrade if you fail to match your investment with due care and attention to vendor selection. Strong partners come recommended by independent software vendors (ISVs). ISV certification ensures hardware and software combinations meet key performance and reliability criteria.
Finally, the best suppliers make great operations an on-going target. A specialist tool – like Dell Precision Optimiser, for example – can help your business fine tune performance for key areas such as CPU, graphics and operating systems. The tool automatically adjusts system configurations for critical applications, giving improved software performance of up to 121 per cent.
Mark Samuels
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Tags: CAD, graphics & design, Technology