Upgrade Recommendations for Creative Cloud

[nickflix]

Hello! I'm looking to expand my horizons beyond Pro and go for the entire Creative Cloud. 

I've put some of the specs for my current set up below, but I'd love to get some recommendations for specific gear from you experts out there. Not saying money's no object and it would be tacky to say how much I'm willing to spend, but my brother-in-law is an ace computer guy, so he's going to build the PC once I tell him what to put in there, so if what I've got isn't going to give me optimal results, I'll shell out the dough. 

I only use Premiere on the current one and I find the playback and response times to be a little sluggish even after clearing cache and exiting other programs, so any advice is most welcome since I feel like what I've got just isn't quite good enough. Thanks in advance. 

Windows 10

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz 4.00 GHz

16GB of RAM

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. 

100GB SSD (I use an external hard drive for cache). 

[John V Knowles]

Two places to look:

Adobe lists the minimum and recommended requirements for Premiere.

Puget Systems has a PC build guide for Premiere Pro workstations.

As far as the rest of the Creative Suite goes, I would look to build something that can also handle Photoshop and After Effects as those are the most resource-heavy programs. Puget has build guides for those as well but you'll see a common theme: don't scrimp on the processor or the RAM (the GPU also matters but not as much as gaming). I would also go all SSD for your drives and have one dedicated SSD for your media cache.

[bob_robertappleton dotcom]

I have a question about running some files on external SSDs in Creative Suite. I have a new M3 Max Macbook Pro with a 48 GB RAM, a 40-core GPU and a 1TB internal SSD. You both mention storing Cache files on a dedicated SSD. What is considered the ideal method for this - to preserve space and increase speed? Keep the Apps on my internal, with videos and Cache on externals?

I can already see the M3 has its limits - as all computers do and after 3 years I'll want a new one. Ideally however, I'd like to increase that turnaround time without losing functionality or power as everything gets bigger, so I need to do the external drive part properly. All thoughts are welcome.

Note to Nick: So I don't use Windows but I visited the Lenovo headquarters in Beijing and they were smart, multicultural, and experimental. Their new mini-desktops imho have great specs for a great price, and are also worth looking at. Also I agree with John's advice. However for moving image, the best Graphics Cards and multi-cores are very helpful.

Bob


Any adv

[John V Knowles]

Hi Bob!
(For All Mankind joke 🙂
For optimal performance with hard drive configuration, the recommended setup has been:

1. SSD boot drive for OS and Apps
2. SSD (fast) for media cache
3. HDD (preferably RAID) or SSD for footage. Drive speed needs to meet or exceed the bitrate of your footage.

The reason to split all this up is to reduce bandwidth and spread out the read/write actions so that no single drive is getting hammered during editing. Premiere will always look to use Media Cache files before anything else, so having those (plus database) on a fast drive has been essential. Many PC users have mentioned improved/stable performance using this setup. Also, having a dedicated disk allows the cache to fill up without impacting the storage space on the boot drive. If you have a laptop with limited onboard storage then moving the cache to a larger disk will keep it from quickly filling up.

NOW: the new Apple Silicon Macs have added an interesting wrinkle to all this. The internal SSDs on these Macs are so fast that the bandwidth issue is practically moot; they can handle the OS, the software and the media cache without breaking a sweat. I've been keeping the media cache internal on my M1 Ultra Studio and performance is no different from having an external SSD. The only argument for keeping the cache external is again the limited storage on your internal drive. You have 1TB so I would experiment with keeping the cache internal but limiting it (in the application preferences) to say, a third of your disk size. Make sure to empty it after you finish a project too. If you find yourself working on a long-form project with lots of compressed media (which will all need to be cached) then you might consider a larger external SSD (T7 or T7 Shields are good for example). 

[bob_robertappleton dotcom]

Much gratitude for this John!
Silicon is something else. If I can, I'll also get an M3 Studio.
All the best from Toronto.

[RjL190365]

You will want to replace your PC's CPU, motherboard and RAM with something newer before you install any newer versions of the Adobe Creative Cloud programs. You see, Microsoft support for Windows 10 will end completely in October of next year unless you pay Microsoft a high fee for continued security-only support for an additional three years. In accordance with Microsoft's support policy, the next major version of the Adobe programs (which will be released this coming Fall) will become the very last version of the Adobe programs to be compatible with Windows 10 at all. Windows 11 will soon be required in order to continue using Adobe software.

And that's not to mention that Intel had completely ended all support and servicing for the first version of Socket LGA 1151 (the 100- and 200-series chipsets) last month.

[MyerPj]

I didn't see a link in here for the Adobe Hardware forum, you can check-in there also:

Hardware Forum 

[MyerPj]

BTW: My 2011 build was much like you current build, except you have a much better GPU. I replaced that rig in 2017.