Terrible performance on 2020 iMac 5K

[I Bleed Pixels]

Premiere Pro is virtually unusable on my brand new, top-of-the-line iMac. Can anyone help me with this. I have tried everything.

My specs:

2020 iMac 5K

3.8GHz 10-core 10th generation Intel i9

64GB 2666 MHz DDR4

AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT with 16GB of GDDR6 Memory

1TB SSD

Catalina OS

And before anyone jumps to clearing caches, moving caches to separate SSD's, proxies, using Metal vs software, different project or sequence settings, etc...

I have tried all of these.

I have also tried both Premiere Pro 2020 and 2019.

I have gone through all updates for both the software and the computer OS.

Nothing solves the terribly slow rendering and playback lag. Despite weeks of research, I'm still uncertain if this is a Catalina issue, a GPU issue, Premiere not using multi-cores properly, something to do with Apple's 5K monitor, or some simple setting I've missed or was unaware of. Or some combination of all the above.

Premiere Pro was faster on my old 2011 iMac (with much lower specs than my new machine). It is also faster on my 2015 MacBook Pro (although it has gotten slower with each new release of Premiere Pro.

I DO realize that the AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT is NOT on the list of compatible GPU's. But it DOES kick in when I check my Activity Monitor. As does the CPU. Despite that, the lag is awful.

I DO realize that Premier Pro is kinda designed to perform best with Nvidia GPU's. But PP can't seem to function with the AMD at all???? Moreover, it is a highly rated graphics card on all the benchmark sites and, by the numbers, compares very well against most of the upper end Nvidia's. Neither Final Cut Pro X nor Davinci Resolve appear to have ANY problems with the AMD... in both cases, playback and rendering are fast and smooth.

I have used Adobe CC products, including Premiere Pro, for YEARS. And, for the most part, have loved the software, integration and workflow. And, until recently, rarely ever had any problems.

But  editing in Premiere Pro is now a nightmare.

I'm hoping SOMEONE can point me in the right direction here, and that I can find a solution to speed things up and continue to use the software I've spent all these years learning.

But, barring a solution, I am now switching to Davinci Resolve. No other choice if I want to be even remotely productive in video editing.

[Jeff Bellune]

I have read so many posts like this. If someone knows what magic combo of hardware works, that is a business right there. Just build units with that blend of hardware and they will sell out as so many people spend thousands of dollars and have terrible progress with Adobe. 

By @Greendialer

That is a great idea. Let me explain why it won't work. 😀

There are already companies who will put together a custom powerhouse computer just for video editing with Pr and Ae as the operational centers. The hardware and software combinations are installed and tested to guarantee these machines will work flawlessly OOB. Pr will fly; Ae will render frames at eye-watering rates. If these machines are kept in their virgin state and disconnected from the Internet, they will never be the bottleneck in any workflow, barring hardware failure.

 But then some things happen. Users want to install a new plugin or a new utility that they think will help their workflow. Adobe promises cool new stuff in an update. Apple and Microsoft announce a security patch that simply must be installed. They get tired of moving to the old laptop or tablet or desktop to do something as simple as an Internet search or reply to a client's email. So they connect the machine to the Internet and download software and patches. They Google this or that and maybe even inadvertently open a dodgy email. One of their hardware manufacturers offer a new driver. Apple pushes out yet another pretty update to macOS. And then they start working on invoices and spreadsheets and letters on what used to be a pristine editing machine.

And so a year and a half later (after their maintenance contract with the machine builder has expired), they come to Adobe's website because Pr is running slow and things take forever that used to happen instantly. It takes tremendous discipline to keep an editing machine dedicated to editing and absolutely nothing else.

And so Adobe tech support and we here on the forum have to ask, endlessly, about software and plugin installations and drivers and OS versions, hardware changes, networking and basic computing stuff to get a picture of why this user's machine is behaving badly when a lot of others are doing just fine.

And sometimes it is a bug in the code that causes the problem. But the bug doesn't affect every user. Or even bugged users the same way. And so the questions on system configuration and use continue, at least until Adobe finds the bug, prioritizes it and patches it. Which patch you have to connect to the Internet to get!!  (I've heard that going into your backyard when your neighbors aren't home and screaming at the top of your lungs can ease the helpless Catch-22 feeling you get from that.)

I'm sorry you had to go through all that the past year. I sincerely hope you had family and friends to lean on.

[KidCamera]

I bought an 8,000 USD maxed out 2021 imac and I am experiecing the exact same thing. I am a twenty year editor and use most of the common performance fixes and even some uncommon ones. OP is not crazy and his description of buying a new Ferrari perfectly sums up how I, and most people I have talked to, feel about Adobe products. I would love for these products to work. But they just don't and are getting worse. Every serious editor I know is switching or has switched to resolve (which also has problems). Blackmagic is still in the phase where they need their products to work and be constistant in order to build their business, so at least they are still listening to their costumers. Adobe left that phase long ago and as a customer, I haven't felt like my user experience has mattered in years.