Dell Precision - any good? for audio production?

I am referring both to the notebooks and the desktops here.

I never hear anything about these things. Are they any good?

I need a machine strictly for intense multitrack audio production. They're listed as "high performance workstations". But are they outdated, and other lines fare just as well?

Just give me some insight here. Any suggestions as to other notebooks/desktops would be great as well. I'm also looking at the Vostros, Inspirons, etc, and other brands as well.

Thanks,
derek

 

Speaking with respect to laptops, performance-wise, they use the same CPU's and chipsets as Latitudes and Vostros and Inspirons. Basically, most of the industry, in their new up-market laptops, has standardized on the same chipset -- the Intel Santa Rosa Chipset. Hence, CPU and memory benchmarks will all mostly be identical across the entire universe of laptops using a particular processor.

To a large extent the same is true with respect to desktop and servers these days -- for a given CPU, the speed is nearly the same amongst all of the vendors, so you really have to shop on features alone.

I think you need to do more research to nail the hardware and requirements end of things down, before you go out and try to select a laptop or a desktop or a server onto which you are going to place your applications.

For instance, these are the questions, if I was your consultant, I'd ask you:

1) What sound hardware/software do you want to run with on your computer?

2) Are you in a rackmount environment? Wouldn't you like to just put your machine onto the rack along with the rest of your sound gear?

3) How much storage space do you need? Do you need it RAID'ed?

etc.

With Dells these days, "workstation" typically implies an up-market graphics board, and maybe a slightly faster hard drive, as well as a more 'professional' looking case. Obviously sound editing wouldn't necessarily require the very high end 3D cards that are typically a part of 'workstation' configurations.