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As a computer-savvy dev, i feel like its hard to beat building your own given how cheap & powerful desktops are today, and how good software is. Workstream spe
by zaptheimpaler 7y ago
As a computer-savvy dev, i feel like its hard to beat building your own given how cheap & powerful desktops are today, and how good software is.
Workstream specs are - 6 CPU, 16GB RAM, 2GB graphics card, 256GB SSD.
You could build a desktop beating that for around $800 today - including a Ryzen 3600, motherboard, case, better GPU etc. At $0.18/hr for Workstream, that means after just 44 hours you breakeven on building your own machine.
With a little extra work on setting up VNC/RDP/Parsec you can then access this desktop from anywhere. I already do this and it works great for the most part. The streaming app/protocol is key, and thanks to teams like Parsec and Moonlight we have high quality software doing this for free.
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But given their target market, this does look really cool. Amazon Workspaces costs 3x-4x more for comparable machines with Windows. Paperspace looks like its offering OSX and some good bundled software for designers, VFX etc.
- marbogast40 7y ago$800 / $0.18 per hour = 4444.4 hours I think you did: $800 / $18 per hour = 44 hours Pretty big difference! Curious, does this change your value assessment?
- zaptheimpaler 7y agoOh good catch! That works out to 185 days so it won't change anything, my pc will last a lot longer than that. But then again, even a much lower cost wouldn't change things for me. For one I completely own my pc and can do anything I want on it, second I know it's secure & private and my data won't be used in ways i might not know about, and third there's no internet latency on input/output which is nice for gaming etc. I could go on but yeah I feel like it's clear owning is generally better than renting for many reasons
- stevens32 7y ago185 days of continuous use.. for many 4000 hours is easily a decade worth of gaming