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Michael Grenadier
Legend
April 26, 2023
Question

minimum laptop to run latest version of Premiere?

  • April 26, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 1167 views

so I've been using a 2012 macbookpro to work onsite with clients but am stuck in premiere 2022...  got a new macstudio recently for working from my office.   Don't need a high power machine to do this kind of work as I always generate prores proxies for all media and don't do any serious effects or outputting when I'm working at a clients...   Anyone using a base model macbook air with premiere or an inexpensive windows laptop?   I have extensive experience moving projects between mac and windows so don't anticipate any issues...  Could do some research consulting Premiere minimum hardware required, but more interested in realworld experiences.  

 

thanks as always.  

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1 reply

Conrad_C
Community Expert
Conrad_CCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 26, 2023

I edit rather basic projects (cuts and Essential Graphics lower thirds, some transitions, few effects) from H.264 camera source clips, on an M1 Pro MacBook Pro with 32GB unified memory, and don’t bother with proxies any more because editing flows smoothly enough with original clips. A current M2 MacBook Air should be comparable to that, and should run Premiere Pro well. You might get away with 16GB unified memory, but maxing out the M2 Air at 24GB would be better to make more unified memory available for GPU acceleration, especially if you keep multiple applications open.

 

I used to edit on a 2011 MacBook Pro. Other than possibly not needing to use proxies on 2K/4K source clips, the differences during editing that you will probably notice between your 2012 Intel Mac and a new M1/M2 Apple Silicon Mac are dramatically increased GPU acceleration (the GPU in a 2012 is pretty weak by today’s standards), little to no lag thanks to the combination of GPU acceleration, video codec hardware acceleration, and a lot more CPU cores; and Apple Silicon power efficiency means heat/fan noise should be much lower or hard to notice most of the time. Hopefully you are already seeing these benefits on your Mac Studio.

M
Michael GrenadierAuthor
Legend
April 26, 2023

Thanks...  yeah, very happy with the mac studio.   Hoping to keep the cost of the laptop under $1,000 if possible and not averse to a windows machine if that will be considerably cheaper.  

Conrad_C
Community Expert
Conrad_CCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 26, 2023

Because you  mentioned “minimum,” technically you can pick up a base model M1 MacBook Air for $899–$999 depending on where you shop. That meets the literal minimum system requirements for Premiere Pro, and it should work OK. But it has just 8GB unified memory and 256GB storage, so you may have to watch your memory usage and free space on internal storage more closely because it is much more likely to hit its limits than a better configuration. (A full SSD will slow down considerably.) Upgrading memory and/or storage will push it over $1000. The experience on an M1 Air will still be a nice improvement over your 2011 Mac, but not quite as nice as on the Mac Studio.

 

I am not an expert on PCs so will leave it to others to recommend sub-$1000 PC laptops that might work. There are plenty of good PC laptops cheaper than the MacBook Air, but an awful lot of them are very low powered, designed for office/school work. The main question is which ones have a CPU, GPU, and amount of memory that will run Premiere Pro well, with low heat and low fan noise. And then, which ones that clear that bar are less expensive than a discounted M1 MacBook Air.

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