FAQ: What computer and components should I buy for Premiere Pro or After Effects?

See this page for the official minimum system requirements for Premiere Pro.

See this page for the official minimum system requirements for After Effects.

Note that the minimum system requirements are just that: a minimum to run the software. You will need components that exceed the minimum system requirements to achieve satisfactory performance in many cases.

These resources are also excellent starting points for informing such decisions:

• "Hardware performance white paper: tips to configure or upgrade a workstation for video software"
• What PC to build? An update... (Premiere Pro Hardware forum thread hosted by Harm Millaard)
• What PC to build? (Premiere Pro Hardware forum thread hosted by Harm Millaard)
• After Effects CUDA benchmark testing results (from Danny Princz)
• After Effects CUDA benchmark testing results (from Teddy Gage)
• Premiere Pro Benchmark test and performance reference materials
• Resources for choosing a graphics card for Premiere Pro

Specific to the questions of certain kinds of components:

• hard disks: Optimizing Hard Disks
• CUDA/OpenCL cards for Premiere Pro: CUDA, OpenCL, Mercury Playback Engine, and what it all means
• OpenGL in After Effects CS5.5 and earlier: GPU: OpenGL
• CUDA and OpenGL in After Effects CS6 and later: GPU (CUDA, OpenGL) features in After Effects CS6 and later

Also see these resources:

optimizing for performance: Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects