Adobe Premiere Pro 2025 isn't optimized for the new M4 MAX chip from Apple.

[catmandowolawolawu]

I would love for this to be addressed, since I found very little official information on it — only scattered community posts and insights.

I recently purchased and maxed out the Apple MacBook Pro M4 Max with:

16-core CPU

40-core GPU

16-core Neural Engine

128GB RAM

2TB SSD

I'm using it primarily for video editing — without proxies or transcoding — which is one of the main reasons I invested in this level of hardware.

After testing, I noticed that the latest versions of Premiere Pro and After Effects (v24.4 and 2025 builds) are:

Laggy when scrubbing, even with a basic timeline

Overloading the CPU (100–140%) while barely using the GPU (~2–5%)

Showing worse performance than my older M1 Pro system, especially in timeline responsiveness

After rolling back to Premiere Pro v24.2, I noticed

Scrubbing and responsiveness improved

CPU usage dropped

GPU usage slightly increased

Overall stability returned to what I would expect from a top-end system

This suggests that newer builds of Premiere are not yet fully optimized for the M4 Max architecture — or at the very least, the Metal rendering pipeline isn't offloading as much to the GPU.

I’m submitting this to ask if Adobe is aware of this optimization gap

Encourage the dev team to prioritize GPU utilization and performance on M4 Max chips

Help others who may be facing similar issues and don't realize that older versions run smoother

Thanks in advance — and I’d be happy to run further tests or benchmarks if needed.

[R Neil Haugen]

Without the details of the type of media you're working with ... codec, framesize/rate, bit-depth, and of course what effects you typically use, how many tracks video and audio, I'm not sure anybody could figure out anything.

In troubleshooting, details matter. Help them and us help you, please!

[MyerPj]

And as Neil has previous said, the gpu is not a second cpu, or a cpu helper. There are specific areas in PP where the gpu helps, otherwise it's mostly a cpu software. I don't think the codebase has changed much in recent years to effect the lack of optimization of the M4.

Just wondering, have you ever tried the proxy workflow? It's pretty slick, especially if you are working with h.264/5 media.

[catharina_2542]

I would like to second this! I have a similarly speced Macbook Pro here (only 64GB RAM) and some days I randomly can't even open my current project. I am working with Proxies for a 4k edit that I started on my 2019 MB Pro and am trying to finish on this new computer and am seriously considering going back to the old laptop because how can I not even open Premiere?! A restart of the computer has helped sometimes, but this is ridiculous.

[jamieclarke]

Hi @catmandowolawolawu - 
Thanks for submitting your bug report. We need a few more details to try to help with the issue.
Please see, How do I write a bug report?

As Neil has asked What type of media are you working with?  Can you right click on your file and choose "Media File Properties" then post a screenshot.

If you navigate to your preferences under the tab "Media Analysis & Transcription" and then uncheck everything does playback improve?

Can you check your audio hardware settings and make sure Default Input is set to "No Input"

Sorry for the frustration.