Windows 11 Home is perfectly fine for gaming and general productivity, but if you’re a professional user there are many reasons to consider paying a little more and opting for either Windows 11 Pro or Windows 11 Pro for Workstations. Why? There are many differences below the surface that sets the Pro version of Windows 11 apart from the Home Edition, and if you’re using high-performance hardware it can make a world of difference.
Pro RAM and CPU Core Counts
Windows 11 Home users can have up to 128GB of RAM and 64 CPU cores. That’s more than enough for any home user and prosumer users alike. Windows 11 Pro increases those numbers to 2TB of RAM and 128 CPU cores. Windows 11 Pro supports two physical CPU packages on multi-socket motherboards, while Windows 11 Home only supports one physical CPU package.
Windows 11 Pro for Workstations supports a whopping 6TB of RAM and up to four physical CPUs on a four-socket motherboard. If your workloads require these types of hardware setups, you must choose the correct version of Windows 11, or you won’t get the full performance of your system.
Advanced Administration Tools
Even if your computer doesn’t have more than 64 cores or 128GB of RAM, there are still plenty of reasons to go for Windows 11 Pro rather than Home. Many of 11 Pro’s features make day-to-day mission-critical computing easier.
For example, you can set up Windows with a local account in the Pro version, removing the dependency on an internet connection. You can use Windows remote desktop as a client and as a host. Hyper-V virtualization is only available on the Pro version of Windows, so if you need to work with virtual machines and you don’t want to use third-party VM software, 11 Pro is a must.
You also don’t have access to the Group Policies Editor, which is invaluable for fixing various issues that crop up in Windows or customizing your OS behavior to your needs.
BitLocker Drive Encryption
Windows 11 Pro is also a much more secure operating system since it offers OS-level full disk encryption in the form of BitLocker. If you lose your laptop or your desktop computer is stolen, then no one can decrypt the contents of your drive without your password.
Easy Deployment and Maintenance
If you have to maintain multiple workstations, Windows 11 Pro provides the tools you need to administer all of those systems from one main Admin account. You can control what software is pre-installed, which updates are allowed, and what each individual user can or cannot do on a given system.
This is thanks, in part, to Windows Update for Business. This flexible feature lets you have full control over security updates and you can test new updates on a subset of computers before rolling them out to everyone. This prevents a bad update from taking all of your computers, potentially costing a fortune in downtime.
Alternatives to Windows 11 Pro
While Windows 11 Pro and Pro for Workstations aren’t prohibitively expensive, there are alternatives if you need a cost-effective way to load an OS on high-end systems that exceed the hardware support on Windows 11 Home.
Linux is still the best overall choice if you have systems that are highly specialized and your software has been ported to run on Linux. Of course, if you want to have the sort of support that you’ll get on Windows 11 Pro in Linux, you’re still going to have to pay for it, but at least the upfront cost is negated. If you’re not sure which operating system is right for any of our custom-built Titan workstations, don’t hesitate to reach out to us and we’ll advise you on the best choice for your needs.
