Premiere Pro performance on MacBook Pro M4 Max worse than 2017 iMac Pro

[Niya360]

Hi everyone,

I’m running into a serious performance issue with Premiere Pro on my new MacBook Pro M4 Max, and I wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing the same or if there are known fixes.

My setup (new MacBook Pro)
• MacBook Pro 16” (2025)
• Apple M4 Max (16 CPU cores / 40 GPU cores)
• 128 GB unified memory
• 4 TB internal SSD
• macOS [current version]
• Power adapter: 140W
• All media and proxies stored on internal SSD
• No other apps running during editing
• Latest Premiere Pro version (native Apple Silicon, not Rosetta)

Premiere Pro version:
• 25.5.0(Built 13)

The project
• 360 stereoscopic video, 6K, 60fps
• Sequence length 10min, no effects. Only basic cuts and basic cross fade transitions.
• Proxies generated using DNxHR VR stereoscopic Quicktime Proxy, Quarter frame size.
• Program monitor preview at 1/8 resolution

Issues
• Playback is very slow and freezes after a few seconds.
• Scrubbing the timeline is impossible.
• The MacBook runs very hot while attempting playback.
• Oddly, this exact same project runs much smoother on an older iMac Pro (2017).

iMac Pro specs (for comparison)
• iMac Pro (2017)
• Intel Xeon W 10-core @ 3.0 GHz
• 64 GB DDR4 RAM (2666 MHz)
• Radeon Pro Vega 64 GPU (16 GB VRAM)
• 500 GB internal SSD
• macOS Monterey 12.7.6

The iMac runs a 2023 Premiere Pro version (not sure which one)

Why I’m confused
• On paper, the M4 Max MacBook Pro is far more powerful, with way more GPU and memory bandwidth.
• Yet in practice, the 2017 iMac Pro handles VR 360 stereoscopic editing better and smoother.
• The MacBook overheats and seems to throttle, and Premiere feels like it is underutilizing the hardware.

What I’ve tried
• Proxies
• Keeping project/media on internal SSD
• Disabling High Quality Playback
• Sequence Settings, Preview codec Apple Prores Proxy, reduced from 6400x6400 down to 4000x4000.
• Running Premiere in native Apple Silicon mode (not Rosetta)
• Closing all background apps

• A few other tricks, like Audio Audio Hardware/no input. Media analysis, uncheck everything.
• The only thing that made some difference was to render the sequence. Playback a bit better but still skipping frames and scrubbing not working at all.

Any advice, or confirmation that this is a known bug, would be really helpful.

I imported the project in Final Cut Pro and the playback is smooth like butter, I can scrub the timeline, no drop frames, incredibly responsive. I expected that FCP would always run a little better on Mac but PP performance is just beyond bad for such high spec machine.

If you know any fixes please advise. This is my last attempt to stay with PP before making the hard decision to move to FCP for good.

Thanks!

[Conrad_C]

Just out of curiosity, In File > Project Settings > General, under Video Rendering and Playback, does Renderer say “Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (Metal - Recommended)”?

It’s definitely very strange that performance would be so bad on a MacBook Pro of such a high spec level. I’m able to smoothly edit and scrub rather basic sequences (non-professional mostly just cuts and titles) smoothly in Premiere Pro on a lowly M1 Pro MacBook Pro without straining the cooling system. I just tried a 1920 x 1080 timeline (with some 4K source clips) and it plays smoothly set to Full resolution.

[Niya360]

“Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (Metal - Recommended)”: YES

"1920 x 1080 timeline". Of course, it does. Did you notice I'm talking about "360 stereoscopic video, 6400 x 6400, 60fps"? That's quite a different case. However, Final Cut Pro and DaVinci are capable of perfectly handling the task...

[Niya360]

The resounding silence from Adobe is noticeable.

Is this the wrong forum to post this issue?

[RjL190365]

The problem is not with the Apple Silicon, but you are comparing completely different versions of Premiere Pro. You see, newer versions of Premiere Pro have more added features, some of which are very resource-consuming. As a result, Premiere Pro 25 has significantly higher minimum practical system requirements than the 2023 version did.

Try running both the iMac Pro and the M4 Max MacBook Pro with the exact same version of Premiere Pro (assuming that you can update the iMac Pro's OS to macOS 15 Sequoia, the latest version of macOS that's supported on the iMac Pro since the newest macOS 26 Tahoe has dropped support for the iMac Pro altogether), and then come back with your findings. Just be aware that Apple will depreciate support for the iMac Pro to "vintage" support within a year or two as it was discontinued in 2021 and indirectly replaced by the Mac Studio, which requires a separate monitor purchase.

[Niya360]

Agree. I didn't say the problem is with Apple Silicon. I think the problem is with Adobe. If DaVinci Resolve is up to date with the latest M4 chip and Sequoia OS, then why Adobe is not?

I'm not going to do any tests between M4 and iMac. No time for that. I'm just editing my project on FCP.

[Warren Heaton]

@Niya360 

I have the same model MacBook Pro and everything I've done with so far has been perfectly smooth; however, I'm usually working with 2160p ProRes HQ or 1080p ProRes HQ and sometimes ProRes 4444 with alpha.

Are you able to share a clip?  I could try to reproduce the issues that you're experiencing.

- Warren

[Niya360]

Glad to hear it's smooth for your workflow and clip resolution. From what I gather in forums, many people have experienced problems with Premiere Pro and Sequoia, many have gone back to older OS. But not posible to downgrade on M4.

The main clip I'm working with is an MP4 file and it's 75GB. Would you convert this into ProRes HQ? It would be massive.

Then, there are other additional clips as MP4 and some ProRes 4444 with Alpha.

I had to move this project to FCP, a very steep learning curve for me! After all the issues with PP,  I was really surprised how smooth the editing experience was and FCP has not crushed, not even once (unbelievable for PP users like me!).

[Warren Heaton]

Which verion number of Premiere Pro are you running?  You listed 25.5, but you also mentioned Apple Silicon mode (not Rosetta) which indicates Premiere Pro 23.x.  25.x does not support running Premiere pro under Rosetta.

Try 24.x or 25.x while leaving any other major releases installed.  I usually append "_pr23" or "_pr25" to my project filenames.   Just be very mindful of which project file version you're working with.

If 25.5 is what you're running, try rolling back to 25.2, but also try 24.x.

If you try transcoding to ProRes, I'd go with ProRes 422 LT.

Final Cut Pro tends to run really well on almost any Mac, but it can crash just like any other app and an FCP Library can get corrupted.