Why Doesn't Premiere Pro Max Out My GPU/CPU?

Using Intel's GPU for H.264 is OK since it will make use of Intel's Quick Sync. That being said with your system the Intel GPU is probably using system RAM that you cannot afford to loose. It would not hurt to test out your system with and without the Intel GPU enabled.

https://youtu.be/pE6t1ryanO4

i think this has something to do with how premiere pro processes the data. my guesses are :

1. any program in pc doesn't let u utilise all the available ram or else there wll not be enough ram for the windows to operate properly while u are rendering your video. u can adjust the memory usage under edit>preference> memory. here u can adjust how many memory from ur ram to be used for premiere pro. same goes to media encoder. 

2. regarding to the cpu utilisation, maybe the project doesn't need the full processing power of the cpu while editing proxy files or 720p files. i noticed when im editing 4k videos directly my cpu tends to go max out. 

3. Premiere pro/ media encoder doesn't split our projects n render them simultanously . it only render our project frame by frame. 

4. As mentioned in point 2 & 3, that's why some project doesn't necessarily max out our gpu or cpu. unless adobe implement technology such as triple buffer as nvidia uses in gaming, we're stuck at frame by frame rendering. at least for the time being. 

that's my 2 cent. 

Getting the right balance of hardware for Premiere is something that say boutique builders Puget Systems and Safeharbor computing study all the time. And of course as a new series of builds comes out, like the 2020/14.x we're now into, then things change a bit.

It can be frustrating trying to get the best rig for the buck. Most certainly.

And how to build for Premiere isn't obvious unless you ask a ton of questions of those what do build and test a lot of rigs. Um ... not so much even then.

As to yours, if it's running using 87% of the RAM, and the CPU is running along at around 20%, then ... even if it took every last bit of RAM, the CPU would go up to what ... 21.5% or so?

Yea ... not so fun to figure this stuff out.

Neil

That's what, 87% of your RAM being used by Premiere? As you need some for system work, that's about the max you'll normally see it use.

So ... at that point, the clear bottleneck in your system is the low amount of RAM. 16GB is relatively a small amount of RAM for much work in Premiere. With 8GB, you can barely open the program. 32GB (as I've got) gets more performance out, but still is a limiting factor. My next rig will be 64GB if not more. Just ... because it's needed badly to get performance.

Neil

So what's the utilization of the RAM currently? If it's 80% or better, you can't get much more use of the CPU as it's dependent on what it's getting from the RAM.

Neil

I was going directly from your informative screen-grab up top. Your rig is running at 90% of system RAM in use, is what is showing. With that situation, there's not that much more your CPU can be doing. It's having to wait for RAM to process stuff.

The basic encoding and decoding process in Premiere is built around the CPU/RAM primarily. The GPU is used for those things on the GPU Accelerated Effects List ... think Warp Stabilizer, color corrections, major resizing, that sort of thing. So if not much of anything is being processed on the accelerated list, the GPU isn't heavily involved. Hit a resized clip, a clip with Warp, or a ton of color corrections ... and your GPU may well spike to the max suddenly.

They've added some things to the GPU processing list over time, and will probably add some more things at some point. It's something where if more were processed through the GPU it might shave some time on "basic" rendering or encoding where there's no current GPU-Aceelerated stuff in use. But of course,  the sections of a timeline where heavy GPU effects are in use would process the same speed as it does now.

You might find that an intraframe codec such as Cineform, ProRes, or DNxHD/R might be processed more quickly on your system. And especially in proxies during playback.

Neil

H.264 is "long-GOP"  which means that only every 9-15 or more "frames" is actually a complete actual frame of media simply compressed. Well ... that was the idea. Now many cameras, GoPro, drones and such record 30 or more frames between complete or "i-frames" at times.

In-between, the only thing that exists per "frame" of time is a data-set of

• pixels that have changed since the last i-frame
• pixels that will change before the next i-frame
• BOTH: pixels that have changed since last i-frame AND pixels that will change before next i-frame.

A year back, one of the more tech-savvy users here noted that some H.264 he was getting from drones had partial i-frames. The longest stretch he found was 120 "frames" between actual complete frames of media.

The CPU must decompress an i-frame, store it to RAM, call up the next 'frame' data-set, recall the previous frame from RAM, compute the differences, store THAT image to RAM, call up the next data-set ... oh ... this has pixel data from the NEXT i-frame, so first it has to call up that frame what ... 27 frames down the line, decompress, and then compute from that and maybe the previous i-frame and the data-set what "this" frame is supposed to be. Store it to RAM, rinse and repeat.

It is incredibly demanding of RAM and "transit" ability on the mobo between the CPU and the RAM, and of course the disc some also. Yes, long-GOP media is by its nature far smaller on disc. However ... also by its nature, it is far more demanding on the CPU/RAM and subsytems than an intraframe codec like Cineform, DNxHD/R, or ProRes, where every frame is complete in and of itself, only compressed some.

So many people I know, especially colorists, tend to transcode all H,264 media before working with it. Or use a full proxy workflow so they do not edit or color while running the H.264 on the timeline.

The best recommendations I've seen for if you have much H.264 material to work, and cannot or will not t-code or proxy ... is 8 or more cores as close to or above 4Ghz as possible, with as close to 10GB of RAM per core as possible.

Neil

Actually, you didn't install the lazy version. In fact, H.264 editing takes a LOT of both CPU processing power and a lot of RAM just to even handle. Plus, Premiere Pro 2020 is MUCH more hardware-intensive than previous versions.

With that said, look at the maxed-out RAM usage and the very low CPU usage. These are giveaways that your 2-in-1 simply isn't equipped with enough RAM to handle this video editing task. And you cannot add more RAM at all to that system as the RAM is permanently soldered onto the motherboard, which offers no DIMM slots at all for expansion.

Why are you using H.264 for proxies?

Best is to use Cineform or Prores much less taxing on the system.

On a side note I would disable the Intel gpu in the bios.