iMac, iMac Pro or Mac Pro for Adobe Premiere Pro?

[erichui84]

Hi guys,

I am trying to help my brother (He is a semi professional) do some research to what computer he should upgrade to. He is mainly trying to improve his Adobe Premiere Performance. (he also uses it for Photoshop etc. but mainly is not happy with the Premiere Pro performance)

He mentioned it is really slow when he is trying to do editing, like when using the timeline etc., not so much the actual export of the video (sorry I am not so familiar with these since I don't use them) At the moment he is mainly doing 4k but said is/will be doing 6k too.

At the moment he is running an iMac 2015, 3.2GHz i5, 32GB Ram, 1TB M.2 SSD, AMD Radeon R9 M390 2GB (I have attached a screenshot of his computer's overview).

What do you guys think would be the best for him? He is happy to stretch even to a lower end Mac Pro if it does offer him better value for money.

I have tried to do some research but still haven't come up with something that I completely understand.

Few questions I have in mind:

1. How much RAM will he actually need/want? Of course more is always better but it will be no use if the software can't make use of it. I have attached some screenshot of him doing something from the activity monitor. He said that was when working with a relatively small file and I can see Adobe Media Encoder was using 11.34GB of memory, and Premiere Pro was using 6.73GB. Is he going to get much benefit for going 64GB or even more?

2. How much difference does the GPU makes in the performance of doing editing with Premiere Pro? Say if he is getting the base model MacPro, is it worthwhile to upgrade the GPU? (eg. to Pro Vega II )

Hope I am not asking too many stupid questions here, if someone have some article explaining more about these in details I am happy to read them too.

Or if there is any more questions I should ask him let me know too.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[casperes1996]

I highly recommend watch Max Yuriev on YouTube. He compares a lot of Macs in various video editing tasks.

If performance is a concern I also recommend switching to Final Cut or DaVinci though I recognise that's not always an option or a choice someone wants to make.

ANd lastly, addressing the actual question:
Any of the outlined options would be an improvement. If he can stick with what he has now, my ideal recommendation actually, would be waiting on a refresh of either the regular iMac or the iMac Pro and getting either of those (highest end regular or any Pro). I don't think the Mac Pro offers very good value, at least in the short term. With a lot of upgrade intentions for the future it might be a decent proposition, but it seems to me like the iMac line offers good options, especially if he doesn't have a really nice separate 5K monitor or equivalent.

The GPU matters a lot when video editing. In fact I'd call it one of the most important parts, though Premiere isn't always the most efficient at utilising the system.

But the base Mac Pro will offer less performance out of the gate than a base iMac Pro, but cost a lot more. You pay a hefty price for upgradability and a way overkill PSU for the standard components. And again the iMac offers an excellent screen along with it. Of course if his work pays enough to justify it great. The Mac Pro offers a lot of potential, especially looking into the future with an upgrade path, where as the upgrade path for an iMac is "sell it and get the next model". But for equivalent performance with a 5K screen you also could buy about 1.5 iMac Pro.
But again, if it's the iMacs, I'd probably advice waiting for a refresh.

 

[martyjmclean]

For Premiere Pro? A high-end Mac Pro might run it smoothly. 😂 PrPro prioritises CPU and GPU cores > speed, so I would recommend he/you take that into consideration.

 

[erichui84]

Thanks @casperes1996 Will look into Max Yuriev's YouTube!

@martyjmclean will look into that as well. Thanks!