DPC latency
The delay when a Windows driver spends too long on its deferred work and the audio driver has to wait its turn.
In Windows an interrupt service routine does as little as possible and hands the rest to a Deferred Procedure Call, which runs at high priority before ordinary threads get the CPU. That works as long as every driver keeps it brief. When a network, Wi-Fi, graphics or power-management driver takes a millisecond or two instead, the audio interface's buffer isn't refilled in time. The result is crackles and dropouts, however fast the machine.
Diagnosis is usually detective work with tools like LatencyMon, which shows which driver stole the time. Typical remedies are disabling Wi-Fi, changing power settings and updating the BIOS. That an expensive workstation can drop audio because of a touchpad driver is one of the less glamorous chapters of making music on a PC.