I built a work PC exclusively for Premiere Pro - yet it is still very slow

[T-Sendicus]

Hello and thanks for reading my thread!

Long story short, I use premiere pro to edit videos for my job. I began on a Lenovo Legion laptop, didn't run premiere too well, but i was using a $1500 laptop so that's to be expected. Since  I use Premiere for work, I saved money to build a PC exclusively for Premiere Pro.

However... it still runs very badly, even though I tried to build the PC around Premiere. Had it since November, been slow ever since I built it (premiere is slow, everything else is fine). Running playback at even 1/4 quality still lags. Exporting is an absolute horror.. Premiere is very unresponsive, any minor adjustments can take up to 30 seconds to even show up. None of the content I edit is 4k either.

Computer Specs-

Ryzen 3950x

SSD - Samsung V-NAND SSD 970 EVO Plus NVME M.2

RAM - 2 X 16 GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz

GPU - Nvidia GTX1660

Things I've attempted on Premiere and my PC -

-Putting all files in use on my SSD for fastest access

-Created and used proxies (ensured they were properly made, turned on)

-Allocated anywhere from 20-30 GB RAM to Premiere exclusively

-Use Premiere in Performance mode instead of Memory mode

-Using Nvidia's Studio Driver instead of Game Driver

-Made sure both sticks are plugged in to run both at once 

-Turn Ram speed up to 3200 MHZ (since it came at factory settings), and made sure both sticks are plugged in properly to run them both at once

-Over 1 TB of space available on my C drive

-Optimized everything on computer to performance mode  (where applicable)

-Premiere, Drivers are all up to date

-Exported with CUDA Acceleration Enabled and Disabled countless times. Best case scenario, I use it Enabled and it takes me 1-2 hours to render a 5 min video (which is totally fine by me). Sadly, it's rarely best case scenario

Any suggestions would be very appreciated. I love Premiere Pro and what I can do with it, but it's becoming unbearable and I've looked through so many forums, youtube channels, articles.. Figured I'd post here on the official forum and pray someone could help me with this. Thank you very much for takin the time to read this!

[John T Smith]

One thought... which slots did you use for your 2 ram sticks?

When I recently built my computer based on https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-Prime-Z490-P/dp/B07ZT3F95V/ I almost installed the ram sticks wrong... on my motherboard (looked at the 2nd picture down the left side) the 2 ram sticks go in the 'light colored' sockets that are on the right side of the two pairs... they do NOT go side by side or in the left side of the two pairs

I prefer Intel, so know nothing about your CPU and how it performs... you might click this for ideas

https://community.adobe.com/t5/video-hardware/premiere-pro-hardware-articles-to-read-before-you-buy-...

[T-Sendicus]

Gotta say it was a little confusing at first, but I looked in the manual and it told me that the first two should be in A2 and B2, so I left A1 and B1 empty. Did a little checking around to make sure I did put em in right, seemed everything was in order. Slots go Empty > Stick >Empty >Stick , weird but thats how they want it I guess. And thank you, I will check out that article!

[John T Smith]

Yes, your motherboard has the same instructions as mine... which I saw while reading the PDF that I downloaded (same as the printed manual, but I could tell Acrobat to blow up to 200% to make it easier to read than the small manual) so my 32G sticks are in A2 + B2 in my Asus motherboard

I will never buy a 4k camera (I edit 1280x720 video from a Canon SX510 camera, with the end result being a DVD) but I did download a few test files from https://4ksamples.tumblr.com/ and everything played well, so I'm happy with my build

Intel i9-10900k CPU in ASUS-Prime-Z490-P motherboard with 64Gig TEAMGROUP-3200MHz ram
Seagate-FireCuda 500Gig M.2 for Windows and programs (see below for startup note)
500Gig SSD for temporary and output files, 1T SSD for video and picture input files
MSI GeForce GTX 1650 128 Bit Graphics 4Gig GDDR6 video ram

To get the ASUS motherboard to boot from the M.2 drive I had to go into BIOS and change...
Change CSM from disabled to enabled
Change Boot from Storage from Legacy to UEFI
Change Boot from PCI-E from Legacy to UEFI

[JonesVid]

Hi - you don't say what motherboard you have used?. Also what sort of footage are you editing ... HD 1920 x 1080 H264/H265 ?

I have always used Intel processors for some time now but the processor you are using has 16 cores (I think) so this should eat Premiere for breakfast.

Have you checked the NVMe M.2 memory is actually working in the right mode - this is usually set in the system BIOS.

On my ASUS Z390 board (Intel) if you use the wrong M.2 slot this will share bandwidth with a SATA port. May not be the case for you, but these are the sort of things that slow stuff down.

Is BIOS up to date and are all settings in BIOS correct?

When allocating memory in Premiere you do need to ensure the system has enough memory to operate correctly - so I always leave at least 8GB of memory for 'other 'apps'.

Have you done all the usual stuff like resetting Preferences in Premiere by holding down ALT as it launches

I have had some weird problems with Premiere with that and I think it can be an issue sometimes.

Deleting all Cache files in case of corruption etc...

Have you tried running a stressing test program to establish the actual PC platform is working correctly as a baseline?

When building a system I would always put System on one drive and allocate another fast drive (eg NVMe) for your Premiere Project stuff and also move the Cache there as well.

Finally when building I would always gather all latest drivers and then Format the hard drive (eg NTFS) and build my Windows system first.

Make sure all drivers are up todate and BIOS - then go into BIOS and ensure all settings are correct for your system setup needs.

Then check PC with a Stress test utility. There are loads on the web but ensure you scan any downloads from non trustworthy sources with a good Anti Virus first before using.

I have used CPU-Z and OCCT (www.ocbase.com) which I found out on You Tube. OCCT seems to be used by a lot of Tech REviewers, but I am no expert on it.

[T-Sendicus]

Sorry - completely skipped my mind! I was up all night finishing a video, then spent like 8 hours figuring out why it wouldnt render (which is the reason I  was inspired to make a post on this forum and was too tired to remember motherboard!). I've got an Aorus 570X Elite, i'll edit that into the main post, thanks for the heads up!!

Also, the footage is 1920x1080 HD H.264, but I edit with proxies since H.264 is insanely slow to edit with. Proxies dont really solve the issue completely though.

-I'll double check that all the settings in the BIOS are optimized!

-Did NOT update Bios, since I'm new to computers (this is my first PC i've built) I did my best to research why you would need a Bios upgrade, most replies I saw were 'dont touch it unless your PC is busted'. I figured since the rest of the PC works flawlessly, a bios update might not be the problem, but do you think it might be worth a shot updating it? I was just hesitant since I saw so many people against it

-I'll do that so Premiere has at least 8 GB free at all times, I was experimenting from anywhere 20/32 to 30/32 used for Premiere but didnt notice much of a difference.

Also, Ive run tests to make sure the PC is running OK, as well as checking the temps during different processes (which only really change when Premiere starts using 100% of my memory and CPU). 

It seems I may have to update Bios , since that's one of the only things I didn't try. . Going to look into it more since I've never done it, but I have to thank you so much for all your help! 

[danield25437812]

I built an AMD premiere system and regretted it because later found that Intel runs it a lot better. That being said, after version 14.6 or so they started using the graphics card more and I noticed a significant performance uptick. I would say you made a mistake purchasing a GTX 1660. If you're making a computer for editing I dunno why you would go for the budget GPU option. At least go with a 20 series like a 2070. That to me is definitely your bottleneck. Also, AMD has released their 5-series CPUs which run a lot better, not sure why you'd go for the older CPU. That being said, I run a 3900X and while it dosen't ALWAYS run super amazing, it mostly does. I wonder if it's your GPU? I have a GTX1070 so my GPU is on the older side, but it still dosen't have the problems you're having. what minor adjustments take so long? For me things like warp stablize take a while.

[T-Sendicus]

Im not really the best with computer parts, but on puget systems Premiere Pro CPU performance: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X (pugetsystems.com) it said that the 3950x smoked all other stuff i was considering. Plus I got lucky since it was the only one in stock , when I was building this there was very limited options. Sadly the GPU was because there wasn't much else available, and I heard that on Premiere the CPU was more important for actual editing than GPU. I know that GPU helps the render and export much more, but i wanted the performance to be less sluggish during the actual editing process, does GPU affect that speed? And I didnt know Ryzen 3950x was bad I thought it was one of the best ones you can get for premiere

Also in terms of upgrades I'm looking to get 32 GB more Ram for a total of 64, then hopefully upgrade the GPU to one of those newer 3070s if I could ever get my hands on one.

The whole problem is that the build i currently have is nowhere near perfect, but with the parts it has.. there is no reason at all that it should be this slow. 

[danield25437812]

ah yes computer parts are hard to come by these days. I would say definitely do not upgrade the RAM, going from 32 to 64 will not help. Definitely upgrading the GPU would be the best bet. And its def unfortunate that Adobe doesn't optimize Premiere for AMD, hopefully someday they will lol, but for now in the new versions, they use the GPU in the regular timeline for sure. what kind of effects are taking super long to process?

[RjL190365]

Your PC is nowhere near perfect because in your particular case, it is only as powerful as its weakest link. That GeForce GTX 1660 is a weakling of a GPU by current standards while these days costing too much money for its own good. That 1660 uses only GDDR5 VRAM with a much, much lower memory throughput than slightly more expensive GPUs. In fact, the GTX 1660 has a memory throughput from its 192-bit GDDR5 VRAM of only 192 GB/s - the same throughput as the 128-bit GDDR6 VRAM that's in the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER.

And I have tested PCs with a few CPUs and GPUs that I had in hand over the years. This is a very classic case of the GPU bottlenecking the CPU: Not only is your system embarrassingly sluggish for video editing, but even routine non-hardware-intensive programs such as Web browsers and e-mail programs run significantly slower than they should. Intel-powered PCs are less sensitive to a deficient-performing GPU than AMD PCs are, which is why @John T Smith could get away with choosing a GDDR6 version of the budget GTX 1650 GPU for his recently upgraded i9-10900K 10-core system.

Simply stated, you should have spent a few dollars more on that PC and gotten yourself a GTX 1660 SUPER instead of that plain GTX 1660. Video editing hardware acceleration demands much higher throughput from the graphics card's VRAM in order to function well.

[basil1891]

"Not only is your system embarrassingly sluggish for video editing, but even routine non-hardware-intensive programs such as Web browsers and e-mail programs run significantly slower than they should" - ridiculous claim, are you just mocking OP?

[RjL190365]

No. I was talking about my own experience. Video editing systems require a proper performance balance between all of the core components. In terms of the relative performance balance between the CPU and the GPU, the pairing of a GTX 1660 (non-SUPER) with a powerful 16-core/32-thread CPU is almost as bad as pairing an 8-core/16-thread CPU with an older-gen GTX 1050. And newer versions of Premiere Pro have been increasing the use of the GPU for all decoding and encoding functions.

Although I did exaggerate the actual real-world performance bottleneck a bit (or more specifically, I do tend to make the bottleneck sound more dramatic than it actually is). In reality, the mismatched CPU/GPU combo would cause the performance to actually fall behind a PC with a lesser-performing 8-core/16-thread CPU which costs one-third the price of the 3950X but with a GPU that's properly matched to the 8-core CPU (in this case, an RTX 2060). In other words, the 3950X/GTX 1660 combo delivers, relatively speaking, poor bang for the buck compared to many other CPU/GPU combos.

[basil1891]

 Video editing systems require a proper performance balance between all of the core components.- True. But that balance will heavily depend on the project specifics. An old article, but still worth reading, 

Adobe Premiere Video Cards Benchmark vs. a Real Premiere Project:

https://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/Premiere-Benchmark.htm

All in all, the best way to find weak spot is to monitor components load during rendering and export. Assuming of course, that there is no software issues which easily may lead to wrong conclusions.

[Andy 1968]

Ryzen 3950x

SSD - Samsung V-NAND SSD 970 EVO Plus NVME M.2

RAM - 2 X 16 GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz

GPU - Nvidia GTX1660

The GTX 1660 will work but it is not the best match.

I have read that some AMD motherboards can be problematic with M.2 SSD. Is it the PCIe 4X causing it? I don't know. My only advice is a BIOS update and a BIOS tweak after that.

[JonesVid]

Just looking at replies so far.

I am of the opinion there is a major issue on the PC platform itself somewhere. I have edited H264 HD 1920 x 1080 on the time line of Premiere in older versions with an early generation intel i7. This had an old GTX 470 GPU in it (steampower!) .

I edited all my daughter's wedding HD footage on that in 2015 without too many problems.

Back then I had to use full software encoding for Export. Yes took some time but not hours and hours.

Even my Dell Laptop with an i5 can edit H264 HD.

Its not until recently Premiere used the GPU for Video encoding /decoding as far as I understand.

The tick boxes can be seen to enable-disable Encode/decode in Edit/Preferences in Media tab.

As you are using AMD I assume you will only see the GPU for using as Hardware Encode/Decode.

Performance will be limted as per comments above.

The Software encode only selection using a 16 core processor should be OK ?.

Tests -> when Premiere is running (say Encoding) have you looked at the Windows Task monitor to see the usage?

Press Ctrl Alt Delete and select Task Manager. Expand to see MOre Details.

You will see tabs with Processes/performance etc. Click on Performance will show you utilisation of the CPU/Memory and GPU usage during say an encode process.

In Processes - look for anything unusual that might be taking up loads of CPU % capability. eg : Is there some unexplained process/app running on the machine which is sucking up your CPU bandwidth?.

BIOS - If all looks well I would get the latest BIOS for your system.

The reason there are warnings to 'leave alone' is that you need to be careful when flashing BIOS - certainly the case a few years back - but MOtherboard manufacturers have made life a bit better now and you can even update the BIOS from Windows utilities on some. My ASUS board allows that - your documentation for your motherboard should say if there are bundled utilities you can use to do same.

As you probably know - don't power off the PC during a BIOS reflash !!

Quick look on the web - I think you will have Q-Flash to do this. https://www.aorus.com/blog/How-to-Update-Your-BIOS-Part-2.php

Finally - you will need the Motherboard / BIOS Manual to ensure you have all your BIOS settings correct. There should be a facility within BIOS after you have done that to save your configuration to a USB memory stick etc - so you don't have to go through the whole process again. ASUS call it 'Tools'

Also as noted above by another contributor - you should ensure the BIOS Boots with UEFI only. This assumes the Hard Disk (SSD) is formatted as a GPT partition and not MBR (older Master Boot Record) type. Windows normally takes care of that as it should have detected you can do UEFI boot when you first loaded Windows.

Don't try to do all this in a hurry - take your time step by step.

Good luck.

[basil1891]

A pair of suggestions based on other users bad experience:

- make sure you don't have any game launcher running in background (epic games, steam,etc)

- turn off g-sync in nvidia control panel