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> If you buy anything labeled as "workstation", you're paying twice the price already.

The price of workstation-class machines also includes the cost of higher build-quality and stability, things like same-day support and service - at least the option for a long-term (5-6 year) warranty, and FRUs - you don't get that with consumer-grade computers - and those things matter when a machine is something you depend on professionally.

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Your random acronym decrypter:

FRU: Field-Replaceable Unit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-replaceable_unit

What the poster means is that a "workstation" is designed with quickly swappable components, often not even needing to use any tools. Businesses may benefit from this.

While it doesn't necessarily mean the swappable components are standardized or easy to procure, they usually are. That's a separate item that "workstation" machines typically offer: longer availability of replacement parts.

$4k will buy you a hell of a lot of troubleshooting time before "same-day service" actually wins out.

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