Premiere Pro 13.1 and Beyond and the the CPU vs. GPU Balance

DMH79,

I noticed in the recent release of Premiere Pro 13.1 that eGPU is now supported watching the videos on this from Adobe people there's a sense (or literally they say) this is just the beginning and there's more GPU optimization to come. H264 Sony files with dissolves, multicam and warp stabilizer) with Premiere Pro taxes the CPU heavily and not much load on the GPU. Until exporting of course. But I'm more concerned with timeline performance over export speeds personally. Looks like other NLE's seem to utilize GPU's a bit more than Premiere so I'm curious if Adobe is headed that way as well. If I was looking to invest in a system (which I will be again this summer) will I top out my CPU as I try to do, or look to put some of that money into a more solid GPU (or even eGPU)? Just curious where these "performance enhancements" are all heading.

Is this the video you were referring to?

I will say this, Resolve uses the GPU for decoding H.264/5.  The performance increase over Premiere Pro is noticeable.

But even then, performance in Resolve benefits greatly from using proxies, especially at 4K and when using effects.

Bottom line, if you're shooting H.264 or H.265, plan on using Cineform proxies forever.

If you don't want to use proxies, don't shoot H.264 or H.265.

It's always a balancing act. Over-powering one thing is never wise.

On a specialist AfterEffects forum I hang with occasionally there's been some rather heated discussions about increasing the number of Ae tools that are GPU-accelerated. Some wanted more effects, others did NOT ... emphatically. Depending on who used what effects and how, of course.

More use of the GPU for some things would slow the use for others.As the use of the GPU is diffused over more steps.

Another thing most of us don't really know as "natural" is that GPU's and CPU's are very, very different hardware/coding. One thing is not necessarily as easily done on one as the other. And yes different apps are coded for different balances of hardware resource use. Which is part of the reason they can run so differently on similar gear.

So ... it's one of those things where you might want to be careful for what you ask for. And besides, my colorist friends have monster GPU setups, sure. But the very first thing they look for in their builds is still the CPU/mobo combo that can host and enable everything else ... all the hardware involved.

Neil