• Requirements For Adobe Premiere Pro
• Adobe Premiere Pro Computer Requirements
• Adobe Premiere Pro Cc Mac System Requirements

After upgrading to Premiere Pro version 13.0, there may be driver issues, and you may need to upgrade your driver.

Some of the driver issues that you could face are:

• Green, pink, or purple streaks in Premiere Rush and Premiere Pro after importing a file or in the exported file. For more information on fixing this error, see Green and pink video in Premiere Pro CC 13.0 or Premiere Rush CC 1.0.
• Renderer option is grayed out when you navigate to File > Project Settings > General.
• Intermittent crash while editing.
• No previews, garbled previews, frame drops, performance issues including slow playback or frame glitches. This article explains what’s needed for using CUDA, Intel, and Apple Metal graphics with the 2019 versions of Premiere Pro (13.0 and higher).
  

Via Adobe Upcoming Versions of Premiere Pro CC will Require Windows 10 (1709) and macOS 10.12 or Higher. We want to make Premiere Pro users aware of a very important support change coming to Premiere Pro CC. The next major version of Premiere Pro CC will only be compatible with Windows 10 (version 1709) and mac0S 10.12 or higher. Adobe Premiere Rush is the free mobile and desktop video editing app for creativity on the go. Wherever you are, from your phone to your computer, you can shoot, edit, and share high-quality videos. Fun, intuitive, and as fast as social media, it’s the easiest way to star in your followers’ feeds. With version 13.0 of Premiere Pro, Adobe has dropped support for all older versions of Windows other than 10 (and even some early versions of Windows 10), and all versions of macOSX prior to 10.12. So before updating Premiere, be sure to update Windows to the latest version of 10, and update your Mac to 10.12 or later. For detailed requirements for the different types of head-sets, and for information on setting up an immersive environment for Premiere Pro, see Immersive video in Premiere Pro. Hardware acceleration system requirements.

Note:

Adobe strongly recommends updating to Nvidia studio driver 451.77 or later when using Premiere Pro.

NVIDIA CUDA graphics acceleration requires CUDA 10.1 drivers.

CUDA is not a requirement for running the Adobe video apps, but if you prefer CUDA graphics acceleration, you must have CUDA 10.1 drivers from NVIDIA installed on your system before upgrading to Premiere Pro versions 13.0 and later.

You can run Premiere Pro with the latest GeForce series GPUs or Quadro Series cards.

These drivers are updated regularly so check the NVIDA website to be sure you have the most current version for your GPU.

You can find the latest GPU drivers here:

Here are the requirements for running CUDA 10.1 on macOS:

• Requires macOS 10.13.6 (most recent version of High Sierra).
• A current NVIDIA GPU with at least 4 GB of memory.
• NVIDIA display driver version 387.10.10.10.40.128.

Note:

macOS10.14 (Mojave) does not currently support CUDA.

Make sure you update the device driver before you install the CUDA driver. You can update the device driver from the following locations:

• Display driver: 387.10.10.10.40.128 (direct download)
  
• CUDA driver: 130_macos (direct download).

Adobe supports those versions of Windows and macOS that are still actively supported by Microsoft and Apple. For macOS, that typically means the three most recent versions.

That holds true for the latest releases as well. However to realize the performance benefits of Apple’s Metal graphics acceleration, the 2019 version of Premiere Pro needs to run on either macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or the recently launched 10.14 (Mojave).

You can still run Premiere Pro on macOS 10.12 using OpenCL graphics acceleration, but Metal provides 15-20 percent faster rendering and Adobe recommends it for optimum performance.

Premiere Pro versions 13.0 and later require a recent version of the Intel graphics driver. Your Intel driver version has to be version 27.20.100.8476 or above to avoid any stability and performance issues. We recommend updating your Intel drivers to the above drivers.

Note:

100.8476 refers to the last two places of the complete version of the Intel driver (i.e. 27.20.100.8476)

Adobe recommends that you try to obtain a compatible driver from your PC manufacturer. If a compatible version is not available, Intel makes a generic version available on its website: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27988.

Note:

If your driver is older than 100.6286 and your PC manufacturer does not provide a compatible version, it is recommended that you do not install a version later than 100.6286 from the Intel site. Driver version 100.6444 is a Windows DCH driver which does not install cleanly on top of older, legacy drivers.

Adobe highly recommends making a backup of your system, first. If you have difficulty installing the driver, see: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005629.html.

If you are using a system with dual GPUs, then:

1. Premiere Pro with Open CL: Premiere Pro first checks for the Intel/AMD driver.
2. Premiere Pro with CUDA: Premiere Pro first checks for the NVIDIA driver.

Performance is important

At BIZON we often get many customers who want to switch from a Mac to a PC Workstation. While there are many reasons our customers want a change, it usually comes down to one major factor, performance.

Whatever you use your Mac or Workstation PC for, performance is important to help you manage your workflow, to ensure your game runs smoothly, for high-quality sound and graphics, and to edit videos efficiently.

The rise in 4K, 6K, and 8K workflows makes optimum performance a necessity for many people, so it is essential to make the right choice when considering a computer.

With performance being the most important factor when deciding between a PC or a Mac, we take a look at why a PC is a better option to use Adobe’s Premiere Pro video editing application compared to a Mac or iMac Pro 2019.

To find out whether a PC or Mac is a best video editing workstation, we took three iMac systems and a PC workstation of a similar price and tested them across performance for live playback, render in to out, and export.

If you love data we’re sure you’ll enjoy looking at our charts, which show how the systems compare, but if charts aren’t your thing you can always scroll past the data to read our conclusion.

To compare the iMac Pro and Mac Pro to our BIZON V5000 4K/6K/8K video editing workstation, we tested the following system configurations, using Premier Pro version 13.1:

Price $5700 + $520 (4K monitor) = $6220 –> ~$6200

• Processor: 14-Core 3.30 GHz Intel Core i9-9940X (up to 18 cores)
• Memory: 64 GB DDR4 3200 MHz
• Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB
  Note: With NVIDIA GPUs you get advantages of Adobe’s Mercury Playback Engine acceleration and CUDA support. AMD that comes with Mac have no CUDA.
  
• Hard Drive (Operating system): 1 TB PCI-E SSD (Up to 3500 Mb/s)
• Additional HDD (Storage): 2 TB HDD SATA
• Operating system: Windows 10 Pro
• Monitor: Dell U2718Q 27-Inch 4K UHD IPS Monitor
• Keyboard + Mouse: Logitech Wireless Mouse and Keyboard
• Warranty: Life-time Expert Care with 5 Year Limited Warranty (5 Year Labor & 3 Year Part Replacement)
• Software Premiere Pro CC 2019 (ver 13.1)

• Processor: 2.7GHz 12-core Xeon
  Note: Old generation CPU (2013 Year)
  
• Memory: 64GB 1866MHz DDR3
  Note: Old DDR3 RAM
  
• Graphics Card: Dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs 6GB
• Hard Drive: 1TB PCIe-based SSD
• Additional HDD (Storage): Not available
• Operating System: macOS 10.13.4
• Monitor: Dell U2718Q 27-Inch 4K UHD IPS Monitor
• Keyboard + Mouse: Space Gray Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad + Magic Mouse 2
• Warranty: AppleCare+ for Mac (3 yr limited warranty & telephone technical support)
• Software: Premiere Pro CC 2019 (ver 13.1)

Price $8000 + $169 (Apple Care) = $8169 –> ~8200

• Processor: 2.5GHz 14-core Intel Xeon W processor
• Memory: 64GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC
• Graphics Card: Radeon Pro Vega 64 16GB
• Hard Drive: 1TB PCIe SSD
• Additional HDD (Storage): Not available
• Operating System: macOS 10.13.4
• Monitor: 27-inch LED-backlit 5K display
• Keyboard + Mouse: Space Gray Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad + Magic Mouse 2
• Warranty: AppleCare+ for iMac (3 yr limited warranty & telephone technical support)
• Software: Premiere Pro CC 2019 (ver 13.1)

Price $7200 + $169 (Apple Care) = $7369 –> ~7400

• Processor: 3.0GHz 10-core Intel Xeon W processor
• Memory: 64GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC
• Graphics Card: Radeon Pro Vega 64 with 16GB
• Hard Drive: 1TB PCIe SSD
• Additional HDD (Storage): Not available
• Operating System: macOS 10.13.4
• Monitor: 27-inch LED-backlit 5K display
• Keyboard + Mouse: Space Gray Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad + Magic Mouse 2
• Warranty: AppleCare+ for iMac (3 yr limited warranty & telephone technical support)
• Software: Premiere Pro CC 2019 (ver 13.1)

We used version 13.1 of Premiere Pro, as the latest version wasn’t released at the time of this article. We also found major performance issues with Premiere Pro CC 2019 (ver 13.1), with performance drops in ProRes footage on the PC and RED footage on the Mac when using versions 13.1 and 13.1.1.

For a fair comparison we kept the specs and pricing as similar as possible. For example, as Mac systems only support a single internal drive, we used a single 1TB PCI-E SSD drive on our BIZON Workstation PC, rather than multiple storage drives, which improve performance when generating peak files and importing media. As the iMac Pro requires a keyboard and mouse, we also bought a monitor, keyboard, and mouse for the Mac Pro and PC.

To compare the systems, we tested three different functions in Premiere Pro: live playback, export, and render in to out.

Although we didn’t cover every available codec, we covered a large number of RED clips so that we could really see how different compression levels impact performance. Our tests also used three different timelines to stimulate different types of workload.

Recording results

We recorded the export time from the moment the ‘Export’ button was clicked until completion. We also measured Live playback FPS (frames per second) based on the number of dropped frames relative to the total number of frames in the sequence. For example, by dropping 100 frames in the 4K ProRes 422 HQ 'Basic' timeline (which has 579 frames), you will render 479 frames over 24 seconds for a result of ~20 FPS.

We used Lumetri effects from the 'Lumetri Presets –> Speedlooks –> Universal' effects folder. However, if you’re using a Mac you’ll probably need to delete and re-apply the Lumetri Color effects, as sometimes they don’t translate properly from the PC to Mac.

It can be a challenge to accurately test live playback performance because performance depends on the codec and resolution of your media, as well as the playback resolution (full, half, etc.) and the effects you’ve applied.

At BIZON we often get asked about live playback performance, so we decided to test our media with three different timelines, as well as with a full and half playback resolution. We also decided to calculate the average performance of each system relative to the 10-core iMac Pro using OpenCL.

We found that using Metal with a Mac is a bad idea for playback performance and found a 20-30% drop in FPS with most of our test media, and a massive drop in FPS with RED footage when using Metal on the Mac system. For example, with 4K RED 11:1 footage the iMac Pro 14-core went from 24FPS to 6FPS without any effects being applied to the footage.

Even when using OpenCL you will get a bump in FPS with a PC. However, compared to the iMac-Pro 10-core, our PC workstation gave 25% higher FPS with ProRes media, 30% higher with DNxHR HQ/H.264/ARRIRAW, and almost 75% higher FPS with RED footage, and was 94% faster on average in our ‘Heavy Effects’ test.

In comparison, the 14-core iMac Pro did slightly better with RED footage and was about 10% faster than the 10-core iMac Pro. However, the PC workstation was the clear winner for playback performance and was 25-60% faster depending on the type of footage used; making our PC workstation a better option for FPS as well as better value for money.

8K Footage

It takes time to export on Premiere Pro and export time is often used to measure performance. Taking 4K, 6K, and 8K projects using the different codecs listed in the Test Hardware & Methodology section we measured export performance on all the systems.

With our export tests we found using Metal on a Mac, rather than OpenCL often resulted in a decent performance gain. RED footage was an exception, usually taking twice as long or longer to export with Metal. However, as our findings in the Live Playback test show, Metal was significantly worse than OpenCL, so keeping Premiere Pro in OpenCL mode will be the best option for most Mac users.

If you do decide to stick with OpenCL a PC is your best option, as our Custom workstation computer exported projects approximately 40% faster than the iMac Pro 2019 10–Core. The performance gap closed by a small amount with the 14-core iMac, but the PC still had a 30–40% performance lead. Surprisingly, the Mac Pro managed to keep up with the newer iMac Pro systems with ProRes footage, but fell behind with other types of media, making our PC workstation 40% to 60% faster, as well as saving you a whopping $2,000 on price.

If you’re willing to switch between Metal for exporting non-RED footage and OpenCL for live playback, the Mac systems do better. However, the iMac Pro systems were still around 15% slower with DNxHR, H.264, and ARRIRAW footage, although the 14-core iMac Pro was able to pull slightly ahead of our BIZON V5000 PC with ProRes footage.

8K Footage

Rendering previews are sometimes a necessity, so we tested the ability to render in to out on all the systems for 4K, 6K, and 8K projects using the different codecs listed in the Test Hardware & Methodology section.

Using Metal on the Mac caused another performance problem, with RED footage dropping to 15-20%. However, due to the lower live playback performance with Metal across the media tested, we feel OpenCL offers the most valid comparison across the PC and Mac systems.

With ProRes media, there was around a 40% performance gain with the PC compared to iMac and Mac Pro. This reduces slightly with DNxHR HQ, H.264, and ARRIRAW media, but our PC was still faster and outperformed the Mac by around 35%.

Requirements For Adobe Premiere Pro

Surprisingly, our PC had a smaller performance gain in RED media compared to the other tests, however, the PC was still around 20% faster than the 14-core iMac Pro.

Impressively, PC performance was also 30% faster than the 10-core iMac Pro and 40% faster compared to the Mac Pro.

8K Footage

Best Video Editing Workstation. Conclusion: iMac, Mac Pro, or PC?

Cost wise the BIZON V5000 Workstations is already a winner, with a $6200 price tag compared to a $8,200 iMac Pro 2019 (14-Core) or $7,500 Mac Pro system.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that we paid $420 for a 4K monitor, keyboard, and mouse, so if you already have them you would reduce the costs even more.

Adobe Premiere Pro Computer Requirements

In terms of performance the PC Custom Workstation also comes out on top, with a 35-45% performance gain.

What was surprising was that the iMac Pro 2019 14-Core wasn’t that much faster than the 10-core version and only increased in performance by around 5%. However, live playback performance was usually twice as good on the PC, with tendering and exporting being 40-50% better.
Therefore, our BIZON V5000 video editing workstation PC is the clear winner on both cost and performance.

However, if you’re already stuck with a Mac and want to increase your performance, our findings indicate that OpenCL is a better choice for the majority of Mac users, who want better live playback performance, but Metal was faster with non-RED media for exporting and rendering.

For more information on PC performance compared to Mac systems, you can check out our other articles here.

Adobe Premiere Pro Cc Mac System Requirements

You can also take a look at our Recommended Workstation PC for Premiere Pro and contact us if you have any questions about making the move to PC workstation.