4 Options: Best choice of Mac machine for running Premiere Pro 2019 and After Effects 2019

Report · Jun 17, 2019

Hi,

I will be moving from FCPX & Motion to begin using Pr and Ae. I'm currently using a Macbook Pro (13-inch, late 2014), which has been surprisingly/unsurprisingly (?) amazing to work with, very smooth cutting, rendering effects, titles and transitions, playback, exporting, scrubbing etc, a bit of a dream actually.

I've looked at the minimum requirements on the Adobe website to run CC 2019, it seems my current machine wont cut it. Excuse the pun. Too old, too low spec. I am therefore making the decision to upgrade after nearly 5 years on my Macbook.

I have lined up 4 of what I think will be some good choices of machine to purchase, I would like some help deciding what will be sufficient for running my new software at an amateur level. No big projects, not too much 4K editing.

Bearing in mind, as per the Adobe website the minimum requirement for CC 2019 AND the recommended requirements.

Minimum:	Recommended:
Intel® 6thGen or newer CPU 8 GB of RAM	Intel® 6thGen or newer CPU 8 GB of RAM
8 GB of RAM	16 GB of RAM for HD media. 32 GB for 4K media or higher
2 GB of GPU VRAM	4 GB of GPU VRAM

My choices available for purchase are below.

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015) 3.2GHz quad core, Intel Core I5 (6th gen) 40 GB RAM 256 GB SSD AMD Radeon R9 M390 2048 MB.	Price $1800 AUD. Used condition.	Pros: 40 GB RAM. Screen size. Cons: 2015 model will be outdated soon. Not portable. I will be going to Uni and possibly needing a laptop.
Macbook Pro (Touch bar, 15-inch, 2016) 2.7 GHz quad core, Intel Core I7 (6th gen) 16 GB RAM 500 GB SSD Intel HD Graphics 530 1536 MB	Price $2000 AUD negotiable. (I will shoot for 10% off so I'll ask for $1800 but expect a reply of $1900. Used condition.	Pros: Slightly newer. Portability. Extras. Cons: Might not be great for 4K (?)
Macbook Pro (Touch bar, 15-inch, 2017) 2.8 GHz quad core, Intel Core I7 (8th Gen) 16 GB RAM 256 GB SSD Radeon Pro 555, Intel HD graphics 630 2GB	Price $2000 AUD negotiable. (I will shoot for 10% off so I'll ask for $1800 but expect a reply of $1900. Used condition.	Pros: Slightly newer again. Cons: Smaller SSD (not a big deal for me, as I'll use external mainly)
Macbook Pro (Touch bar, 15-Inch, 2018) 2.2GHz 6-core intel I7 (7th Gen) 16 GB RAM 256 GB SSD Radeon Pro 555X, Intel UHD graphics 630 4GB	Price: Currently $2879 in a store (at 15% discount). Plus I can get a further discount on top of that as I know a sales worker there and they get staff rates on Apple products.	Pros: Brand new with warranty. 6 core. Cons: Will end up being the most expensive, for what looks like will do the same job as the rest.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I can afford the brand new machine, but if I can get away with spending less money for something that will do the job just as easily for less money, then great. Even with the 2 discounts it will be more expensive than the rest obviously.

I'm also happy to be pointed away from all of these options if you think there is a better choice I can make.

Thanks in advance, I hope this is easy to read.

Nick

Report · Jun 17, 2019

Moved to Hardware Forum