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How many CPU cores is Premiere Pro CC 2015 capable of using?

New Here ,
Jul 15, 2015 Jul 15, 2015

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I'm ordering a new Mac Pro for editing 4K footage and I have the following CPU options available to choose from:

3.5GHz 6-core with 12MB of L3 cache,

3.0GHz 8-core with 25MB of L3 cache

2.7GHz 12-core with 30MB of L3 cache. 


I don't want to order one with a slower clock speed if Premiere Pro doesn't utilize 12 cores, or even 8 cores.  I guess there's a trade off between clock speed and processing cores and I'm trying to find the sweet spot.  Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Chuck

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LEGEND ,
Jul 15, 2015 Jul 15, 2015

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I believe it is 32 cores/64 threads.  We have results with dual E5-2697 v3 Xeon's that have 2 x 14 = 28 cores total that all were working extremely effectively on a system that Eric Bowen of ADK built.

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New Here ,
Jul 15, 2015 Jul 15, 2015

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Thanks Bill, and are you working on 4K content with that set-up?  Do you think the additional processing cores/threads of the 12 core option would make-up for the slower clock speed when editing 4K? Thanks!

Chuck

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LEGEND ,
Jul 15, 2015 Jul 15, 2015

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Maybe Eric Bowen can stop by here, I am only reporting results of our PC-centric Premiere Pro BenchMark (PPBM).  But I do not know of any reason why 4K would be any different, it just need all the CPU power that you can throw at it.  Now as you add cores you have the add memory and of course it is a shame that Apple does not offer nVidia cards as an option as they are superior to the AMD cards they do offer.  Also make sure you have a proper storage system, are they offering SSD's?  You do need a balanced system where all the critical elements are balanced, do not cut back on the RAM and Storage to get the 12 cores

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New Here ,
Jul 15, 2015 Jul 15, 2015

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Hey Bill,

I should have mentioned in my initial post that I'm maxing this thing out with the following specs:

- 1TB PCIe-based flash storage (which I've heard is twice as fast as a standard SSD, not sure on that)

- 64GB (4x16) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC

- Dual AMD FirePro D700 GPU's with 6GB of GDDR5 VRAM each

That's why I want to be sure I'm "maxing out" the CPU as well however I'm not really sure what "maxing out" would be considering the drop in clock speed as you increase the number of cores.  This is a really big investment for me and I just want to be sure I get it right. Thanks again!

-Chuck

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LEGEND ,
Jul 15, 2015 Jul 15, 2015

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I am very familiar with a lot of the latest in storage.  I am building an all SSD well overclocked PC.  Can you also get your OS and application on another SSD device?   The rest looks very good and of course very expensive.

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New Here ,
Jul 16, 2015 Jul 16, 2015

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Hey Bill,

The OS and the application (Premiere Pro CC 2015) will reside on the 1TB PCIe-based flash storage and the video files/project files will reside on a RAID 0 drive connected via Thunderbolt.  Anyone else have any thoughts on my original post regarding which would be the best CPU option for editing 4K video on the new Mac Pro?  Thanks!

-Chuck

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LEGEND ,
Jul 16, 2015 Jul 16, 2015

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I would guess that is terrible utilization of that very expensive 1 TB PCIe SSD.  I am not familiar with Mac's but in the PC world 256 GB would be more than enough for the OS/Application drive.

  1. For instance on my new all SSD X99 i7-5960X; I do have a standard ~500 MB/s 256 GB SATA III SSD for the OS/Application drive.
  2. Then I have a PCIe x4 card with a ~1000 MB/s Samsung XP941 256 GB for Cache memory
  3. And the on-board M.2 socket has a ~1500 MB/s 512 GB Samsung SM951 for projects.

Are there any other available PCIe slots in a MacPro?

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New Here ,
Jul 20, 2015 Jul 20, 2015

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Hello Bill,

I agree that the 1TB PCIe-based flash storage may be a bit excessive considering it will be primarily used as an OS/Application drive.  That being said, it's an $800 upgrade to go to the 1TB over the standard 256GB drive.  I figure it would be nice to have the ability to have additional on-board storage if necessary.  Additionally, I may end up also running Windows on a virtual machine for a couple of legacy programs that don't have a Mac equivalent. I figure I'd spend the extra money on the front end without any concern for running out of internal storage.

Does anyone from Adobe actually monitor this board?  I'm sitting here waiting to shell out over $10K on a machine based on an answer to my original question (posted 5 days ago).  Apparently Adobe can't be bothered to answer a very simple question.  Not that they make anything off the Mac computer I plan to buy but I also pay every month for 2 full CC accounts, you'd think that alone would at least warrant an answer to a question that seems very rudimentary!

Chuck

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Adobe Employee ,
Jul 20, 2015 Jul 20, 2015

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Hello Chuck,

Does anyone from Adobe actually monitor this board?

Typically, no. This is a user to user based forum. I do monitor and try to help, but there are way too many posts for me to answer on my own. Other employees try to volunteer their time on a limited basis, but please do not expect Adobe to answer you if you call out to us on this forum. We probably won't hear you.

If you actually want a response from Adobe, use our support wizard to get in touch with our video queue agents, who can assist you with any questions: Contact Customer Care

Our best support agents are the "video queue," which you can ask for by name. They are available M-F 7AM to 7PM PST. Otherwise, you will not be speaking with our video queue agents. If you are not getting the help you need, feel free to send me a message by clicking on my name and then click "Message." Type in your message and I will try to route your case to the proper place if I can't help you myself.

Apparently Adobe can't be bothered to answer a very simple question. 

Again, we don't have the manpower to answer every post that calls out for a specific response from "Adobe." Contact our agents.

you'd think that alone would at least warrant an answer to a question that seems very rudimentary!

We have system requirements, and our agents can give general advice, but many people use the services of a VAR to build a system that have special components that are set up especially for video editing.

If you are building your own system, you may want to ask the advice of those in our Hardware forum. There is a limit to the kind of support and advice Adobe can give you in advance of any purchases you make, as there are so many combinations and choices to make when customizing such a computer system.

In fact, I will move this post to the Hardware forum so you can get more advice, in addition to the already excellent advice you've gotten from Bill Gehrke.

Thanks,
Kevin

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New Here ,
Jul 20, 2015 Jul 20, 2015

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Hello Kevin,

Thank you for your reply however there's noting about my question that's specific to my own personal situation.  It's a very general question.  All I'm asking is what are the hyper-threading limitations of Premiere Pro CC 2015.  I certainly don't want to spend the extra money (and slower clock speed) on a 12-core processor if Premiere Pro CC 2015 isn't capable of utilizing 12 cores.  This is a very simple question that should be known by the front-line support, if not then someone could at least pick up the phone and ask one of the engineers for an answer to my original question.  As I stated I have 2 full CC subscriptions (paying customer x 2) and all I'm asking for here is for a little help.  Thanks!

Chuck

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Valorous Hero ,
Jul 20, 2015 Jul 20, 2015

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as kevin says, this is a user forum and support here is very limited, that's just how it is... you may need to call adobe as he suggests to get an official response.

the 32 core/64 thread limit may only be limited to windows as premiere is not programmed to use more than one windows processor group (something adobe needs to fix asap). i don't know if mac os (freebsd) has the same software structure or not, if so the mac version of premiere may need fixing too. i haven't seen any posts with any core/thread limitations with mac, and no one has responded to your post otherwise, so i think the 12 core mac should be fine. the only issue i've seen on here and other forums is with the D700's graphics corruption and crashes.

from my experience with premiere in windows, overall multithreading works, but it does need improvement. i don't think its to the point to warrant the 8 core vs 12 core, especially where the clock speeds are somewhat close. i couldn't find any benchmarks of the mac pro 12 core vs 8 core and premiere but found these, at least showing the 12 core is a good bit faster.

http://macperformanceguide.com/MacPro2013-performance-Cinebench.html

http://barefeats.com/tube14.html

Mac Benchmarks - Geekbench Browser‌‌  click on the 64 bit multi-core tab

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New Here ,
Jul 21, 2015 Jul 21, 2015

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RoninEdits wrote:

as kevin says, this is a user forum and support here is very limited, that's just how it is... you may need to call adobe as he suggests to get an official response.

the 32 core/64 thread limit may only be limited to windows as premiere is not programmed to use more than one windows processor group (something adobe needs to fix asap). i don't know if mac os (freebsd) has the same software structure or not, if so the mac version of premiere may need fixing too. i haven't seen any posts with any core/thread limitations with mac, and no one has responded to your post otherwise, so i think the 12 core mac should be fine. the only issue i've seen on here and other forums is with the D700's graphics corruption and crashes.

from my experience with premiere in windows, overall multithreading works, but it does need improvement. i don't think its to the point to warrant the 8 core vs 12 core, especially where the clock speeds are somewhat close. i couldn't find any benchmarks of the mac pro 12 core vs 8 core and premiere but found these, at least showing the 12 core is a good bit faster.

http://macperformanceguide.com/MacPro2013-performance-Cinebench.html

http://barefeats.com/tube14.html

Mac Benchmarks - Geekbench Browser  click on the 64 bit multi-core tab

Thanks Ronin, some very interesting benchmarks in that first link.  I'm almost thinking that of the three options the best one for OVERALL 4K video editing/rendering tasks perhaps the best on is right in the middle (option 2)

Option 1: 3.5GHz 6-core with 12MB of L3 cache,

Option 2: 3.0GHz 8-core with 25MB of L3 cache

Option 3: 2.7GHz 12-core with 30MB of L3 cache.

Best Regards,

Chuck

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Valorous Hero ,
Jul 21, 2015 Jul 21, 2015

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while that GPU benchmark shows the 8 core 3.3ghz leading, that cpu has been replaced with the 8 core 3.0ghz, and that benchmark may not translate to premiere. premiere is still primarily cpu based, so the cpu benchmarks may be more important than that gpu benchmark. the second link from barefeats shows the 12 core improving the performance in several programs. all the folks that have responded seem to be suggesting the 12core if going with the mac pro. like eric points out, if a desktop grade windows pc is an option for you, over a workstation grade mac pro, then you can get a faster pc at half the price...

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Advocate ,
Jul 21, 2015 Jul 21, 2015

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Chuck69 wrote:

I certainly don't want to spend the extra money (and slower clock speed) on a 12-core processor if Premiere Pro CC 2015 isn't capable of utilizing 12 cores.

A 12-core will work fine, but you may find the slower clock speeds a hindrance for things like exports.  You're wasting your money on the 1TB flash drive; the base 256G disk is far more than enough.  Specially since OS X takes up so little space on disk.  And don't buy Apple memory; buy it aftermarket and save some more pennies.

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New Here ,
Jul 21, 2015 Jul 21, 2015

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jasonvp wrote:

.....A 12-core will work fine, but you may find the slower clock speeds a hindrance for things like exports.  You're wasting your money on the 1TB flash drive; the base 256G disk is far more than enough.  Specially since OS X takes up so little space on disk.  And don't buy Apple memory; buy it aftermarket and save some more pennies.

As I mentioned to Ronin above it looks like the sweet spot for all around 4K video editing/rendering would be the middle of the road by going with the 3.0GHz 8-core with 25MB of L3 cache.  Thanks for your input!

Best Regards,

Chuck

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Guru ,
Jul 21, 2015 Jul 21, 2015

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Sorry it took so long for me to catch the thread. 4K media especially if it is debayered using the GPU accelerated Debayering would utilize the 12 Core/ 24 threads far more than clock speed for realtime playback provided the clock speed is equal or greater than 2.6Ghz. Realtime playback is where the threading is very important for performance. render speed is more clock speed based once you have the ideal threads for the codecs. Keep in mind though the nMPro is Ivy Bridge ie I7 Gen 3 and the current platform from Intel for Workstation and Server is I7 Gen 4 Haswell E. Haswell E introduced DDR4 to the market and has a very large impact on GPU accelerated applications with 4K+ media. The 2x GPU's wont help you on realtime playback with the nMPro and the performance with Open CL is still behind Cuda. I would suggest you look at a X99 system if performance with 4K is a serious concern.

Eric

ADK

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New Here ,
Jul 21, 2015 Jul 21, 2015

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ECBowen wrote:

Sorry it took so long for me to catch the thread. 4K media especially if it is debayered using the GPU accelerated Debayering would utilize the 12 Core/ 24 threads far more than clock speed for realtime playback provided the clock speed is equal or greater than 2.6Ghz. Realtime playback is where the threading is very important for performance. render speed is more clock speed based once you have the ideal threads for the codecs. Keep in mind though the nMPro is Ivy Bridge ie I7 Gen 3 and the current platform from Intel for Workstation and Server is I7 Gen 4 Haswell E. Haswell E introduced DDR4 to the market and has a very large impact on GPU accelerated applications with 4K+ media. The 2x GPU's wont help you on realtime playback with the nMPro and the performance with Open CL is still behind Cuda. I would suggest you look at a X99 system if performance with 4K is a serious concern.

Eric

ADK

Thanks for the insight.  I didn't even realize that there was a "Haswell E DDR4.  I assume the day after I order my new Mac Pro with DDR3 that Apple will start offering the Haswell E DDR4

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Guru ,
Jul 21, 2015 Jul 21, 2015

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Apple has not released any information on an updated Mac Pro platform with the current Haswell E Intel platform. They may wait for the next release before they do which will either be Broadwell E or Skylake E since Intel may be skipping Broadwell. For what ever reason Intel is being suddenly vague about that lately. DDR4 is the next step for ram ie technology. The Haswell E platform is Intel's designation for their i7 Gen 4 CPU's and chipsets. The boards are identified ie distinguished by the chipsets/sockets used on them. Haswell E means those boards support and require DDR4 for ram since the CPU's for that platform have DDR4 controllers inside.

Eric

ADK

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Explorer ,
Sep 20, 2015 Sep 20, 2015

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Hey Eric,

Just curious here, do you know where I can find the codec hardware performances anywhere? I'm shooting on an A7s in XAVC-S format capsulated by an MP4 file type, and I only max out one core of my 12/24 thread core system when exporting... all the other cores are barely (less than 5%) used. I'm soon investing into another camera and want to know how effecient I can make my editing.

Here's my setup:

3 SSDs for projects, finals (exports), and operating system + Apps

2x 2620 v3 6-core processor

32GB RAM

GTX 970

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LEGEND ,
Sep 21, 2015 Sep 21, 2015

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I am no Eric but here is an export from my system with my Sony FDR-AX100 camera  of the 100Mbit/second XAVC-S project on CS6 showing all 16 threads working.

CPU-utilization-XAVC-S.png

And this was an H.264 (MP4) HD export.

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Explorer ,
Sep 21, 2015 Sep 21, 2015

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Thanks for the proof that XAVC does thread well, Bill. I think Eric's comment below your comment is onto something. One thing that slowed my export practically by 500% was text in premiere, but let that be. The video with text maxed out only 1 core and barely used the others, but I just acceptated that premiere text doesn't thread well. Though the text didn't matter to me and the video only encoded 500% faster, the CPUs were acting the same way. I put the Lumitri color effects on everything though. So maybe those color effects can't thread well. I'll have to do some testing for myself when I get back home.

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Guru ,
Sep 21, 2015 Sep 21, 2015

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Bill is correct XAVC threads fine. Only PNG atleast in the past on Windows single threaded with Adobe. That means you have an FX that is limiting the threading on export or something else.

Eric

ADK

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LEGEND ,
Sep 21, 2015 Sep 21, 2015

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LATEST

You struck a familiar chord on the PNG threading so I went back to the preceding project I just finished which is just composed of PowerPoint slides which I made into PNG images.  This was windows 8.1 and again CS6.  Looks like maybe Microsoft fixed the threading problem in Windows 8.

CPU-utilization-PNG.png

Since the preceding XAVC example was XAVC-S, I do not want anyone to get the wrong idea about CS6.  It does handle XAVC-S but does not handle plain XAVC

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