Video Workstations for
Premiere Pro

Understand Premier Pro’s hardware requirements and pick the perfect 3XS Systems graphics workstation for your project

What is Premiere Pro?

Premiere Pro, from Adobe, is the industry-leading video editing software for film, TV and the web. It allows you to edit footage in any format, from 8K to virtual reality, and offers native file support, lightweight proxy workflows and faster ProRes HDR that let you work in many flexible ways - including on laptops.

What makes the best system for Premiere Pro?

There is no one ideal system configuration for Premiere Pro, as users will have different video resolutions to edit and make different use of the software. Premiere Pro makes use of both CPU cores, higher clock speeds and GPUs too, ultimately depending on whether you are working with HD, 4K, 6K or 8K video content, and the complexity of functions you are using. Functions such as dissolves, warp stabilisation, colour replacement and exporting will place more demand on CPU and GPU resources.

What CPU should I choose for Premiere Pro?

As explained above, a system that will be used for a mixture of Premier Pro functions needs to strike a good balance between CPU and GPU(s). Like most digital content creation (DCC) applications Premier Pro performs best on a CPU with a high frequency and at least eight cores, although more cores can be beneficial in some processes. We recommend starting with an AMD Ryzen 7 or Intel Core i7, upgrading to Ryzen 9 or Core i9 if budget allows. If you’re also going to be generating higher resolution video content then an AMD Threadripper PRO or Intel Xeon W is a good choice as these CPUs have more PCIe lanes, enabling the system to support multiple GPUs and other devices such as capture cards and faster network interfaces.

What GPU(s) do I need for Premiere Pro?

A fast GPU is crucial for a responsive DCC experience in Premiere Pro, with more powerful models providing a more noticeable benefit when working with complex and high resolution video. We recommend the NVIDIA RTX GPUs as a good starting point in the NVIDIA range, adding in more GPUs if budget allows and your workloads scale well. If not, choose a single RTX GPU, but with larger memory.

If you are considering a dedicated workstation for Premiere Pro then we recommend consumer-grade NVIDIA GeForce RTX cards thanks to their outstanding value for money. However, if you’re also planning other intensive workloads on the same workstation then it’s worth considering a professional-grade NVIDIA RTX GPU thanks to their larger memory buffer and certified drivers.

How much RAM is recommended for Premiere Pro?

The minimum RAM that we recommend for Premiere Pro is 32GB for HD content, upgrading to 64GB, 128GB and 256GB respectively for 4K, 6K and 8K projects.

What storage does Premiere Pro need?

We always recommend using an SSD for the boot drive that will host your OS, Premiere Pro itself, and any active projects you are working on. The high speed of SSDs allows your system to boot, launch applications, and load files many times faster than any traditional hard drive. We would also recommend a second SSD or even an NVMe SSD - depending on your budget - for active Premiere Pro projects files. If files are large or numerous several secondary SSDs can be added in RAID configurations to protect data integrity. An alternative solution for high capacity SSD active storage or cheaper HDD archiving could be to employ an external NAS device allowing both sharing and RAID protection.

When it comes to deciding on drive capacity, this will very much depend on your number of files and the project sizes. You should also consider the space required by other applications and their associated files too.

Recommended Premiere Pro Workstation Specifications

Workstation specifications
	High-End (8K)	Mid-Range (4K)	Entry-Level (HD)
CPU	AMD Threadripper PRO / Intel Xeon W	AMD Ryzen 9 / Intel Core i9	AMD Ryzen 7 / Intel Core i7
RAM	128GB	64GB	32GB
GPU	NVIDIA RTX	NVIDIA GeForce RTX	NVIDIA GeForce RTX