Jason De Vos
Over the last two years, I’ve worked on numerous heavy, professional-grade video editing projects like live streaming Lollapalooza, ACL Fest and JazzFest music festivals. A project like a music festival is a tremendously demanding beast as the timelines are extremely tight, as little as a few hours, but the quality of the final product must still be as high as a full blown production. This is why having a fast, high quality production cycle is critical to success and why video editors demand robust, dependable hardware (and lots of caffeine). For projects like these I’ve seen many different video editing platforms including Apple Macs and Dell Precision workstations. I’ve always had the impression that the Dell workstations were faster but was glad to see Dell hire an independent third party, Principled Technologies, to test the systems head-to-head using real world video editing scenarios.
 
The methodology was simple – get the most powerfully configured Apple Mac Pro and Dell Precision™ T7600 with Intel® Xeon® processors you can for $12,500 per system and run real-world video editing tests using Adobe® Premiere® Pro CS5.5 software. Configuration, pricing, and warranty information came from Dell.com and Apple.com as of August 14, 2012. The results showed the Dell Precision T7600, featuring Intel® Xeon® processors, outperformed Apple Mac Pro by up to 96.5% on video production tasks and is up to 28 times faster than the Mac Pro! For example, to render an entire work area for an AVCHD four-layer video, the Dell Precision T7600 with an Intel® Xeon® processor took only 13 seconds to do what it took the Apple Mac Pro more than 6 minutes to accomplish. But this wasn’t some fluke test. The average time saved, incorporating every single test that was run, was 79 percent! Can you even imagine if you had that kind of time back in your day? It even amazes me and I’ve been working on Dell Precision workstations with Intel® Xeon® processors for the past two years. If you do heavy video editing you could literally be wasting your day by working on a Mac Pro. And don’t forget, you get all that power at the same cost!
 
Performance is a key advantage but it’s also important to understand the numerous other benefits Dell Precision workstations offer over the Apple Mac Pro that’s not included in the benchmark study. For example:
 
• Faster processor options for Intel® Xeon® processors
• Up to 512GB of memory (eight times the maximum of the Apple Mac Pro system)
• Error Correcting Code (ECC) memory with patented Dell Reliable Memory Technology to virtually eliminate all memory errors
• Professional grade ISV (Independent Software Vendor) certification
• Factory installed professional grade graphics from AMD or NVIDIA®
• Optional NVIDIA Tesla GPGPU for dedicated GPU-based processing
• Best-in-class chassis design with superior serviceability including the only mainstream workstation with an externally accessible power supply and front accessible hard drives
• Optional Blu-ray support including factory installed Blu-ray burner
• Integrated USB 3.0
 
With all of the competition in high-end computing today it’s easy to see how you could lose track of what’s really important. But at the end of the day, if you’re a video professional then time is money and less time waiting for your system to finish a job means greater productivity and a greater return on your investment. So what are you waiting for? You owe it to yourself to check out Dell Precision workstations with powerful Intel® Xeon® processors.
 
To learn more about some very loyal Mac users who have tested and switched to Dell Precision workstations for video editing, check out dell.com/business/switch to hear their story. Or check out the video below.
 
 

Jason De Vos manages brand and messaging for Dell Precision workstations.  He is responsible for delivering differentiated and relevant messages that help tell the world about the awesomeness of Dell Precision. He is also leading the charge to make Dell Precision the go-to solution for video editing including editorial and live streaming at music festivals such as Lollapalooza and ACL Music Fest.  He joined Dell in 1997 and has held a number of different roles including online advertising, dell.com development and competitive analysis.  Prior to that, he was a lighting and sound designer for the stage and theatre.  Jason holds a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin.

This post was submitted and is sponsored by Dell.