Can my Mac handle Premiere

[sgtpepper_1978]

Hello,

I'm not very computer saavy, so I'm not sure just by looking at the specs if my older Mac would be able to handle Adobe Premiere.  Can anyone give me an idea?

iMac 21.5 in., Mid 2010

MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6

3.6 GHz Intel Core i5

16 GB memory

500 GB start up disk

Graphics ATI Radeon HD 5670 512 MB

Thank you.

[Michael Grenadier]

you're probably pushing your luck, but...  I've got Premiere running on a 2009 macpro (which I had to do some fancy dancing to get it to load high sierra - no thanks to apple) and running on a 2012 macbookpro.  

Since you can download the trial version, give it a shot.  The proxy workflow is a lifesaver in this kind of situation.  

Just realize that sooner or later Premiere will update past the your hardware's ability to run the necessary OS.  

You might see if you can find someplace that can replace your internal hard drive with a solid state drive.  It's made a big difference on both my macpro and my macbookpro.  

[sgtpepper_1978]

Thank you!  I appreciate your help.

[Michael Grenadier]

well from reading many threads hear you'd think there's no way you can run premiere on your system and I think they'd say the same about my 2 macs but I run them with far fewer problems that many other people have.  so I figure an encouraging word couldn't hurt.  good luck and post back if you have any other questions.

[Conrad C]

If we go by the official system requirements for Premiere Pro, it won’t work.

The first line says it requires an Intel® 6th Gen or newer CPU. But that 10-year-old iMac has a 1st generation Intel CPU.

How about older versions? Adobe lets you use the Creative Cloud app to install up to the last two major versions, but no further back.

Unfortunately, the previous version (Premiere Pro 2019) has the same CPU requirement.

Even if it did work, you would probably be limited to doing very simple projects, because like most current video editing applications, Premiere Pro takes advantage of:

• Multicore processing, for today’s CPUs with 4, 6, 12 cores and more. But the 2010 iMac only has a dual-core CPU.
• GPU acceleration, using today’s powerful graphics cards with (mininum requirement) 2GB VRAM, but more typically 4-8GB VRAM. The 2010 iMac only has half a GB of VRAM, and the GPU is so old it is probably not supported. Any features that would normally be GPU-accelerated will instead be handed to the already overburdened dual-core CPU.
• Fast storage, especially solid state storage of 500-3000Gb/sec. But the 2010 iMac has a hard drive, which is probably no faster than 150Gb/sec. You can probably replace yours with a solid state drive, but it wouldn’t make up for the overburdened CPU and unusable GPU.

You can see if the trial version of Premiere Pro installs, but just be prepared for it to either not work, or work very slowly.

If you just need to do some basic editing on video from recent HD or 4K cameras, you might try two other options:

• Adobe Premiere Rush has much lower system requirements, in fact, your 2010 iMac seems to qualify. If you can’t install Premiere Pro, try Premiere Rush next.
• Consider editing video on a recent iPad or smartphone — no joke, many recent mobile devices have CPUs and GPUs that will edit today’s video formats faster than a 10-year-old Mac.