Low performance with Cropping/Masking

There is an issue with croping/masking, even with only two layers. Playback can't run smoothly even in 1/8 resolution and rendering time takes about 20 times more than should. . 

notes:

1. Latest Premiere pro 25.3 (happened with previous version as well).
2. Working on Windows 10 pro.
3. There are no other effects applied to the upper layer (nor to the lower one).
4. Files used are: .MOV 4K 150mb/s. 4:2:2. VLOG. out of a Panasonic s1H.
5. It's not the first time I'm working on a similar project with same files, I don't think I had that issue with older builds (cc2024).
6. Rendering a 10 sec clip takes about 2 minutes. With cropping disabled - 6 sec. 
7. Hardware specs are: 

CPU: 14900K
GPU: RTX5070 super. (CUDA enabled. also tried to disable it) 
Data is on: MSI M480 PRO 4TB (nvme pcie 4). 

RAM: 96GB (48*2)

Would appreciate some help with addressing the issue.