How many processor cores for Premiere Pro/After Effects?

[Fox Hill Photo]

I am looking to purchase a computer for editing video in Premiere Pro and After Effects, and am looking for advice on whether more processor speed or extra processor cores would be more valuable. For example, would a quad-core Intel i7 running at 4.0ghz be superior to a six-core Intel i7 running at 3.4ghz, or would the six-core processor offer better performance?

Thanks!

[moved to hardware forum by mod]

[Bill_Engeler]

Others will chime in with specifics, but generally more cores is better, even at the stock speeds. If you overclock the 3.4ghz chip even a little , then it's better yet.

[Bill_Gehrke]

It is a combination of the two.  I will have some simulated test data later tonight.

[RoninEdits]

high clock speed with a good core count is good for adobe software. high core count with low clock speed will be bad.

for those two cpu's it would depend on the workload, AE vs premiere, timeline and media etc. current versions of AE are limited to 2-4 cores, so AE will generally run faster on the 4 core. whenever they fix AE to use more cores, the 6 core should be better. premiere is going to be a bit more mixed but can use between 4-8 cores for basic timelines, and higher in some situations. often the 6 core will do slightly better in premiere, especially for 4k media/timelines and if the 6 core is overclocked around 4ghz.

[Fox Hill Photo]

Thanks! In After Effects, I'm primarily looking to composite high-resolution artwork (higher than 1080, probably up to 4K) in 3D space with a lot of keyframe animation. Premiere Pro would be used for editing these finished After Effects clips, and also compressed 1080 video.

On a different note, how would a GPU enhance the performance of Premiere Pro and After Effects? Am I correct in thinking that with the Ray-Traced 3D Renderer being obsolete, a GPU is no longer critical for After Effects, but it's still valuable for accelerated playback in Premiere Pro?

[RoninEdits]

gpu usage will largely depend on gpu fx like lumetri. AE has slowly been adding some fx and features that use the gpu, but its mostly premiere that will see the most benefit from a gpu.

[Bill_Gehrke]

Well here are some Premiere Pro BenchMark (PPBM) simulated test results for a generic 4-c0re 4.0 GHz versus a generic 6-core at 3.4GHz.  This is with my i7-5960X by turning off cores and adjusting the clock.  The main number you should look at is the 4ht score which is the real CPU intensive score.  All were done on Windows 10 and Premiere Pro 11.  Also I have 64 GB of RAM installed.

"24","99","24","564", Premiere Version:, 11.0.0.154, simulated 4-core at 4.0 GHz with the GTX1060 SC @ 1901 MHz

"24","84","23","436", Premiere Version:, 11.0.0.154, simulated 6-core at 3.4 GHz with the GTX1060 SC @ 1901 MHz

I accidentally ran the 6-core at 3.6 GHz

"24","79","23","415", Premiere Version:, 11.0.0.154, simulated 6-core at 3.6 GHz with the GTX1060 SC @ 1901 MHz

Just for reference here are my 8-core scores at 4.5 GHz and with vthe overclock GTX 1060 at a Memory Clock of 2400 GHz.

"24","55","19","250", Premiere Version:, 11.0.0.154,

The first number is the Disk I/O test and in my case all 4 exports were to my M.2 Samsung 950 Pro

The second and third numbers are GPU accelerated effects and features from the h.264 and the MPEG2-DVD timelines respectively.

Questions?.

[RjL190365]

Thanks, Bill, for this comparison. However, you have to realize that the platform with the 4-core "4.0 GHz" will actually run at 4.2 GHz when all four cores are loaded, and that it runs its RAM only in dual-channel mode (your tests were run in quad-channel). Nonetheless, the results on my system were pretty close to your "4-core" results (albeit with the older GTX 970).

These results also mean that an upgrade from my current i7-4790K at 4.7 GHz to any of the current 6-core CPUs would have cost me significantly more money than was justified by the performance improvement - to the point that I would have needed to spend more than $1,000 for an upgrade to an 8-core CPU and platform just to attain a worthwhile performance improvement in Premiere. However, if one were to build a new editing rig starting out with nothing, then yes, I would recommend the 6-core over the 4-core.

[Fox Hill Photo]

Thanks for posting those test results! It looks like the six-core is better at running Premiere Pro than the quad-core, at least when it comes to CPU-intensive tasks, but how much of an improvement is a "436" rating compared to a "564?" Do the extra cores come into play primarily during rendering, or do they make a noticeable difference during playback and general editing of video inside Premiere Pro?

Also, I noticed that you ran the tests with a GTX 1060 as the GPU -- how would you say that this card stacks up against previous-generation cards like the GTX 970 and GTX 770, and is a GTX 1060 generally sufficient for Premiere Pro's needs, or would a GTX 1070 make a significant difference?

[Fox Hill Photo]

I should add that in Premiere Pro, having fast render times isn't as important to me as being able to play video smoothly in the timeline with a few basic effects added--text overlay, simple transitions, and drop shadow for scaled videos and pictures playing in front of a background video/picture. For smooth playback of timelines like these, is the GPU or the CPU more important? Thanks!

[JEShort01]

Fox Hill,

Both CPU and GPU can be important, but so long as you have "enough" GPU, CPU will most often be the bottleneck for timeline playback smoothness and scrubbing performance.

Regarding having enough, your media and workflow are very important import criteria to right-sizing a system. You need ENOUGH for your media, timelines, and workflows, but as you approach the higher end of PC computing the law of diminishing returns definitely comes into play - smaller gains in performance near the top can be very expensive.

So, questions for you:

- what media(s) will you be editing (be very specific - resolution, compression, etc.)

- what are you timelines like (# layers, any third part filters?, etc.)

- what version of Première Pro are you using?

Regards,

Jim

[Fox Hill Photo]

Thanks for your thoughts, Jim! At the moment, I am editing 1920x1080 recorded in the h.264 codec; the frame rate is 30p, recorded at 60i. My timelines are generally three or four layers deep, featuring a background image/video with video on top and text on top of that, and no third-party filters are used. I will be using Premiere Pro CC 2017.

I will also be editing uncompressed animated video clips created in After Effects, and these will likely be a higher resolution than 1920x1080; I may be working in 2K if not 4K.

I'm hoping to "future-proof" a little bit with a computer that could handle higher-resolution video down the road, although I realize that given how fast technology changes, this might not be easy.

[JEShort01]

Regarding 4 layers, possible AE in 4K, "future-proof" a little bit... You'll be wanting to go high-end single CPU, but dual Xeon should not be necessary.

OK, I'll get more specific - think:

- Asus x99 Deluxe II

- Intel i7-6800k (could upgrade all the way up to 6950x without changing anything else in the system)

- 64GB of RAM

- power supply; pick one highly rated from JonnyGuru.com; 850 watts minimum; I prefer 1200 watt p/s's so that they run quietly (when a power supply is not heavily loaded, the fans either run very slowly or may stop altogether)

- GTX 1070

- 512GB Samsung 850 Pro - boot drive

- 1TB SATA or M.2 Samsung Pro - work drive

- 7200rpm extra drives for backups, extra storage, etc. (re-purpose old drives?)

Jim

PS - if foxhillphoto.com is yours, you have a great eye and I love your work!

[thejimmywalter]

Very late and ignorant in this discussion.

I had an AMD Phenom II 1055T with a GTX470 1280 MB card

How would that compare with a i3-4160 with a GeForce 9800  GTX?

I am running Premeire Pro and AE, and possible Beauty studio or Continuum from Boris

[Bill_Gehrke]

Both are lousy for Premiere.  I doubt that you could even get a driver for the 10-year old GTX 9800 that would work with Premiere. And no one wants a 2-core CPU

[thejimmywalter]

Thanks for your answer.

What would be good for Premiere in the moderate price range?

Also, I could not see how to mark your answer as correct, which I will do, if you tell me how. Under actions there was only "report abuse", which I did not, "helpful", which I checked, "liked" which I checked, but not correct answer

[Bill_Gehrke]

I wish I knew, I rarely ask a question.  Maybe a MOD can help us.

Really you need a decent Quad core hyperthreaded processor, an nVidia CUDA GPU and a SSD for the OS/Applications.  Here is an example but I doubt if it meets your "reasonable cost" criteria .

[thejimmywalter]

Thanks. It seems not that unreasonable.

I have a tower and a 950 watt power supply, a 450 gb SSD and a 30 gb SSD, and a 1.8 TB HDD and Blueray DVD recorder. I can replace the mainboard and video card, I am told the GTX 470 video card is broken anyway.

Here is what I found on Amazon.de (I live in Austria)

Memory Upgrade Kit Intel Core i7 7700 K 7th Generation (QuadCore) Kaby Lake 4.2 GHz – 4GB DDR4 2133 1792 MB Intel HD 630, USB 3.0, SATA3, 7.1 Sound, M.2 Socket, Gigabi TLAN – HDMI Multimediakit Kaby Lake Fully Assembled and Tested

But that costs the same price as the whole system from you linked to from newegg.

The back story is that my system, the AMD one, stopped working and I went to the local repair store. That has been the nose of the camel. He told me that my mainboard, M4A87TD EVO, was broken and he would replace it. But he did not. He put in some other board and Windows 7 home premium, told me my video card was broken. He then gave me the 9800 and said I needed a bigger power supply. I insisted on windows 7 ultimate, what I had before. He then switched me to this ic3 board and 9800 with a 950 watt power supply in a different case. So I became suspicious and came here. It looks like I have been screwed over.

[Ann Bens]

You can only mark a post as correct if you are the topic starter.

You can click on Like and/or Helpful any post.

[Bill_Gehrke]

So these long winded tangled threads that go on forever probably never get answered.

[Ann Bens]

Probably not but a mod can set the correct answer.

Also people should not post questions in a old thread.

Especially hardware that changes so quickly.

[Bill_Gehrke]

I guess then when we see someone reviving a dead thread is to ask then to start a new one.

[Ann Bens]

Yes that is the idea.

[RjL190365]

As Bill stated, both systems are really lousy for Premiere. The first system performs worse than some recent dual-core Intel CPUs because AMD CPUs of that age do not fully support SSE 4.1 or higher instructions that Adobe software makes heavy use of. The second system has an obsolete GPU that is no longer supported at all in Premiere, and thus the program must render entirely on the CPU, which itself is a weakling compared to other Intel CPUs of its age.

And depending on the cost that you consider "reasonable", you may be trapped between a rock and a hard place due to the cryptocurrency mining-inflated prices of PSUs, RAM and especially GPUs.

[Bill_Gehrke]

Fox Hill Photo wrote:

Thanks for posting those test results! It looks like the six-core is better at running Premiere Pro than the quad-core, at least when it comes to CPU-intensive tasks, but how much of an improvement is a "436" rating compared to a "564?" Do the extra cores come into play primarily during rendering, or do they make a noticeable difference during playback and general editing of video inside Premiere Pro?

Also, I noticed that you ran the tests with a GTX 1060 as the GPU -- how would you say that this card stacks up against previous-generation cards like the GTX 970 and GTX 770, and is a GTX 1060 generally sufficient for Premiere Pro's needs, or would a GTX 1070 make a significant difference?

1. Question? when you say "rendering" do you actually mean exporting?  Or do you actually pre-render you timelines which most of us do not do.
2. I love the GTX 1060 that I have (EVGA  06G-P4-6163-KR) I have all three of the card you mention and it can beat them all especially if you overclock it.  It is safe and less expensive.