Teo Lachev gives us five reasons to switch to Power BI Gen2:
More memory
Imported models are memory-resident so memory is usually the most constraining factor. With Gen2, the capacity maximum memory applies to the resource itself and not collectively across all resources in the capacity. Let’s say you are on a P1 plan which has a maximum memory capacity of 25GB. With Gen 1, you won’t be able to have two datasets, let’s say 20GB and 10GB, loaded at the same time. However, Gen2 will apply the 25GB limit to each dataset. So, each resource (dataset, report, dataflow) will be boxed within 25 GB. This feat is possible because Gen2 uses a SaaS approach, which means datasets are scattered across multiple cluster nodes instead of being associated with a dedicated capacity. A potential downside, however, could be “noisy neighbor” because a P3 cluster node may co-host datasets from different customers.
Read on for the full list of reasons, as well as three things Teo would like to see improved in a future release.