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CPU & GPU upgrade
Hi everyone! I’m finally getting a new computer and plan to use it mainly for After Effects. I have a couple of questions:
I’ve used up to 128GB of RAM so far, which seems to be the limit for most non-pro setups. If I get a system with 512GB, will After Effects actually make use of all that RAM? I know it should in theory, but I’d love to hear from someone with real experience.
Also, about video cards—are professional GPUs like the A5000 or A6000 really better than high-end gaming cards like the 5080? I’ve heard they’re more reliable for things like particle simulations, but are they actually faster?
Sorry if I’m not using the right terms—I’m no hardware expert!
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1 Reply
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Whenever I see someone asking about PC set up, I try to remember to point them to this article:
https://www.schoolofmotion.com/blog/after-effects-computer
The writer spoke to the Adobe team about how their software works and while the tech might be out of date, I don’t believe After Effects (under the hood) has been rewritten so significantly that the information is no longer of use.
In the middle of the article, there’s these takeaways:
<ul role=”list”>
- Higher CPU speeds are better than more cores for After Effects (Even with multi-frame rendering, CPU speed often trumps core count. But a balance between the two is more important now than it used to be.)
- It’s best to have a high-capacity RAM and GPU. More is better.
- After Effects doesn’t use multiple GPUs. A single GPU with high vRAM is the goal.
- Memory (RAM) cache is always faster than disk cache
- Objectively, NVIDIA cards are better for After Effects than AMD cards (and NVIDIA is also better if you want to get into GPU rendering).
- It really matters that your GPU drivers are up to date.
If it helps, I’m running on an i9-10900 @ 3.7GHz, Win 11 Pro, 64Gb RAM, a separate drive for media cache. And not tempting fate, the past three years with this PC have been very smooth for me.
schoolofmotion.com
Building the Ultimate After Effects Computer
How do you make After Effects run fast? We teamed up with Puget Systems and Adobe to develop the fastest computer for After Effects.
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