Premiere Pro CS 6 under the hood.

[Walter Soyka]

Just caught you on the FCPX forum — my advice about balanced systems there [link] applies to Pr as well.

Pr has a couple difference considerations: you could choose a PC and have more performance options available to you for purchase than are available on the Mac, and with Premiere, you specifically want to make sure you have a good NVIDIA card. (See the system requirements [link] and wade through these forums for advice on using non-qualified cards, too.)

I’ll add that all these NLEs have different philosophies and different workflows, so you should make sure you understand those as well. The good news is that they all have free trials available, so you can kick the tires a bit and figure out which one is the best fit for you.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Angelo Lorenzo]

https://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/creativesuite/production/cs6/pdfs/adobe-hardware-performance-whitepaper.pdf Should cover a lot of information.

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

Need to encode ProRes on your Windows PC?
Introducing ProRes Helper, an awesome little app that makes it possible
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services – Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire – The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks

[Andrew Hays]

thank you for the replies gentlemen. I judt hope i don’t have to spend 7 grand on a system. I was specifically looking at the dell 5600 with 16 cores and 32 GB of RAM, and two quadro 4000 cards. This is what I was told I should get in order to get quick exports and renders.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

That’s overkill for Premiere unless you’re editing 4K, or using After Effects extensively.

The Dell 5600 runs off of a Xenon processor which means it’s server grade hardware. You pay a premium for that and ECC (error correcting) RAM. If it’s within your budget, you wont find a normal i series processor with that many cores so you get an advantage.

If you were doing just editing, then I’d suggest 16gigs of RAM and a single Quadro card or even one of the cheaper GTX cards. Quadro cards have extended instruction sets that make them more valuable for 3D apps. I would check some benchmarking figures vs price.

I have a $2200 Intel i7 2600 based system with 32 gigs of RAM, a GTX level graphics card, a BlackMagic Decklink card, and a Red Rocket (The $5,500 Red Rocket is not included in the price).

The only thing I feel a bit lacking is render time and overall speed in After Effects. Both could be improved by moving to a Xenon level processor. The huge amount of RAM is for some AE work, and Photoshop. I work a lot as a high-end photo retoucher so the RAM comes in handy with 70+ layer files.

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

Need to encode ProRes on your Windows PC?
Introducing ProRes Helper, an awesome little app that makes it possible
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services – Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire – The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks

[Andrew Hays]

if that’s overkill for premiere, is it overkill for Avid? I know it’s one of the supported systems, but it still could be overkill I guess. I’m planning on doing freelance as a one man band shooting and editing weddings and the like, while still working at my current place of employment. Once I start making a little more than I make at this job, I’ll go freelance full-time. So I’m needing a system that is fast enough for me to work 4 to 5 hours during the day, and then drive to my current job and work. It’l need to export the jobs without being too slow.

If your saying that system is overkill, than that’s a relief. Maybe the reason the guy told me to go with that was because I told him I only needed one system?? I’ve read Walter Biscardi write along these lines. He’s gone on record as saying that if you need only ONE system to get a beefy desktop instead of an iMac, or something along those lines…

But yeah, the question of whether or not what is overkill for Premiere Pro is overkill for Avid is still on my mind.

[Tom Daigon]

Nice Schnauzer!

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Premiere, with a moderately good system just doesn’t stress RAM and GPU like After Effects does. After Effects will use everything you throw at it. If your freelancing work is mostly events which, I’ll assume, are straight editorial then at a certain cross over point you’re simply paying for faster final renders.

If you foresee yourself doing more AE work then I say dive in, if you don’t then don’t spend needlessly.

I knew my clients, I knew the work I do and decided to put my money towards a Red Rocket in a more modest workstation.

Just food for thought.

In terms of Avid, I rarely use their systems and have limited experience with their performance on a handful of computers. I can say that most editors I know on Avid still prefer using DNxHD in comparison to using AMA to link to native media. Their intermediate codec is really friendly on CPU usage. As to what they may use the GPU for or how optimized their effects set is, I can’t say.

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

Need to encode ProRes on your Windows PC?
Introducing ProRes Helper, an awesome little app that makes it possible
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services – Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire – The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Andrew,

As you are aware by now, Premiere can use select Nvidia cards to accelerate the workflow. However, adding a second card does not help, as the Mercury Engine only uses one card.

A good Core i7 machine with Nvidia and minimum 16GB RAM can provide a good experience for most HD editing needs. If 4 cores aren’t enough, there is a 6-core option as well.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor

[John Frey]

We have (3)quadcore edit workstations in our main studio. I built them a few years ago and they are no longer adequate for the amount and complexity of the HD projects that we work on. Last week I built the first replacement system from a list of components that I put together – not a pre-constructed system. My total outlay was $1,500.00 for a system that is amazingly quick. You can save yourself a lot of money by “rolling your own”. Yes, if you are not comfortable putting it together, then you will need to find a qualified builder. You don’t need to spend $5K to get that kind of performance.

John D. Frey
25 Year owner/operator of two California-based production studios.

Digital West Video Productions of San Luis Obispo and Inland Images of Lake Elsinore

[Dennis Radeke]

Lots of good answers here and I tend to agree with most or all of it.

At a high level, the system is all about BALANCE. 64-bit apps make you as strong as your weakest component. Today, that most often is the storage which is the best place to have it in my opinion.

CPU – i7’s offer a lot of value for the money, but you will see some better performance on dual CPUs
GPU – don’t NEED to have a great GPU but the difference is amazing. The Quadro 4000 is a sweet card and will last you a good long time. 5000 is kickin… GPU blog article
RAM – don’t skimp! 32GB is good, 16 adequate, 64 awesome and future proof.
bus speed – if one mobo is faster across the bus, choose it.
HD – make your boot drive an SSD, you’ll be happy you did. SSD blog article

Dennis – Adobe guy