Test PC/MAC video rendering performance with defined Adobe Premiere Project

While looking for a rendering performance test samples all over the internet, we only found different software for measuring raw computer performance for the graphics card, processor and drives. Not a single test gives a sense of video rendering capabilities of our working editing computer (PC or Mac). That is why we made an pre-defined Adobe Premiere Project and tested some different rendering setups. We found out, the worse case scenario is exporting media from Adobe After Effects via Adobe Media Encoder. It quadrupled the time to export the same file. Video rendering case scenario was tested even in newest Davinci Resolve 15 (free, not beta version).

This kinda experiment isn’t scientific. It was made purely for self-exploring improved workflow for faster rendering finished projects. While if rendering is running alongside with many software running in the background, it increases rendering time. It didn’t make that significant difference if it was rendering from HDD to HDD. So, from all the test we only kept the results from best case scenario we tried. For the video rendering performance test we used 1.5GB ProPress file and export it to JPEG Quicktime and H264 (lumetri with LUT and few manual adjustments, denoiser III – Red Giant plugin, warp stabilizer). The newest Adobe Export doesn’t have Quicktime Photo JPEG anymore, so the DNxHR render was an identical substitute.

For the test, we used PC:
Asus X99-A
Intel Core i7-5820K @3.30GHz
16GB Memory 2400Mhz
Nvidia GTX 980 4GB
Samsung EVO 500GB SSD

If we can get ahold of a REDraw file of 1.5GB to 2GB in size we could put another nice test alongside. It should be 4K, 60 fps, up to 20sec long on 25fps timeline with a little shaking to stabilize and some noise.

Adobe Premiere CC2017 (PC/Win10)

Media Encoder export – fresh restart – no background software – ssd to ssd
– Preset Used: YouTube 2160p 4K
– Video: 3840×2160 (1,0), 25 fps, Progressive, Software Encoding, 00:00:17:10
– Audio: AAC, 320 kbps, 48 kHz, Stereo
– Bitrate: VBR, 1 pass, Target 40,00 Mbps, Max 40,00 Mbps
– Encoding Time: 00:02:46

– Preset Used: Quick time JPEG UHD
– Video: 4096×2160 (1,0), 25 fps, Progressive, Quality 90, Photo – JPEG, 00:00:17:10
– Audio:
– Bitrate:
– Encoding Time: 00:02:34 cca 35% cpu load, 10% gpu load

Adobe Premiere CC2018 (PC/Win10)

Media Encoder export – fresh restart – no background software – ssd to ssd
– Preset Used: YouTube 2160p 4K
– Video: 3840×2160 (1,0), 25 fps, Progressive, Software Encoding, 00:00:17:10
– Audio: AAC, 320 kbps, 48 kHz, Stereo
– Bitrate: VBR, 1 pass, Target 40,00 Mbps, Max 40,00 Mbps
– Encoding Time: 00:02:08

– Preset Used: DNxHR HQ 4K 25
– Video: 4096×2160 (1,0), 25 fps, Progressive, 00:00:17:10
– Audio: 48000 Hz, Stereo, 16 bit
– Bitrate:
– Encoding Time: 00:02:32 cca 70% cpu load, 10% gpu load

Adobe After Effects CC2018 (PC/Win10)

Media Encoder export – fresh restart – no background software – ssd to ssd
– Preset Used: DNxHR HQ 4K 25
– Video: 4096×2160 (1,0), 25 fps, Progressive, 00:00:17:10
– Audio: 48000 Hz, Stereo, 16 bit
– Bitrate:
– Encoding Time: 00:12:25
– Preset Used: YouTube 2160p 4K
– Video: 3840×2160 (1,0), 25 fps, Progressive, Software Encoding, 00:00:17:10
– Audio: AAC, 320 kbps, 48 kHz, Stereo
– Bitrate: VBR, 1 pass, Target 40,00 Mbps, Max 40,00 Mbps
– Encoding Time: 00:12:40 cca 30% cpu load, 0% gpu load

Adobe Premiere CC2018 (PC/Win10)

Media Encoder export – fresh restart – no background software – ssd to ssd – i7-5820K overclocked to @4.6Ghz
– Preset Used: YouTube 2160p 4K
– Video: 3840×2160 (1,0), 25 fps, Progressive, Software Encoding, 00:00:17:10
– Audio: AAC, 320 kbps, 48 kHz, Stereo
– Bitrate: VBR, 1 pass, Target 40,00 Mbps, Max 40,00 Mbps
– Encoding Time: 00:02:02 cca 95% cpu load, 10% gpu load

– Preset Used: DNxHR HQ 4K 25
– Video: 4096×2160 (1,0), 25 fps, Progressive, 00:00:17:10
– Audio: 48000 Hz, Stereo, 16 bit
– Bitrate:
– Encoding Time: 00:02:33 cca 35% cpu load, 10% gpu load

Davinci Resolve 15 (not beta) (PC/Win10)

Effects added:

• applied LUT,
• remove noise (mostly green),
• stabilizer

Export in QuickTime Photo JPEG UHD (H264 was identical):

• SSD to SSD,
• no background software,
• cca 70% cpu load,
• cca 25% gpu load

Render time 3’59”  

Conclusion about render times?

The tested computer is a few years old now and it’s kinda strange that even half the resources aren’t used for exporting video project. There couldn’t be any bottlenecks in the main hardware unless the Windows, memory or mainboard chipset somehow affects the capabilities. Which in a way sux very much, because you can buy high-end hardware but you won’t get all the power from it. Even more interesting is, that Davinci Resolve takes more time to export the same file while using much more computer resources. We always thought that rendering times are quicker… even many benchmarks on Youtube show that Davinci and Final Cut in most cases beat the Adobe rendering times. If those benchmarks weren’t using real case scenario…. they are misleading the community. What were your results in this video rendering test? Here is the link to the .zip of the project including the prores file. The export settings for Adobe Media Encoder is up to you to set. Default Youtube 2160p 4K and DNxHR HQ 4K 25 should be great for comparison. Please send us your results and computer rig you are using (even Apple users are welcomed – including the Final Cut results with identical clip effects). Other users reports:

Adobe Premiere CC2018 (Apple/iOS)

Media Encoder export – no background software – ssd to ssd Apple iMAC:

Intel i7-7700K @4.2 GHz Radeon Pro 580 8GB 1TB SSD 40GB DDR4 Memory

– Preset Used: YouTube 2160p 4K
– Video: 3840×2160 (1,0), 25 fps, Progressive, Software Only, 00:00:17:10
– Audio: AAC, 320 kbps, 48 kHz, Stereo
– Bitrate: VBR, 1 pass, Target 40.00 Mbps, Max 40.00 Mbps
– Encoding Time: 00:01:59

Adobe Premiere CC2018 (Win10/PC)

PC configuration:

Intel i7-4930K @3.4Ghz DDR3 16GB Memory Geforce GTX 1080Ti 11GB

Media Encoder export – no background software – ssd to ssd
– Genutzte Vorgabe:YouTube 2160p 4K
– Video: 3840×2160 (1,0), 25 fps, Progressive, Software
– Codierung, 00:00:17:10
– Audio: AAC, 320 KBit/s, 48 kHz, Stereo
– Bitrate: VBR, 1 Durchgang, Ziel 40,00 MBit/s, Max. 40,00 MBit/s
– Codierungsdauer: 00:01:36

– Genutzte DNxHR HQ 4K 25
– Video: 4096×2160 (1,0), 25 fps, Progressive, 00:00:17:10
– Audio: 48000 Hz, Stereo, 16 bit
– Bitrate:
– Codierungsdauer: 00:01:35 cca cpu 90%, gpu 6%

Adobe Premiere CC2019 (Win10/PC)

PC configuration:

Intel i7-5820K @ 3.3Ghz 32GB Memory 2400Mhz Asus ROG Strix GTX 1080Ti 11GB Samsung EVO 500GB SSD

Media Encoder export – no background software – ssd to ssd
– Preset Used: DNxHR HQ 4K 25
– Video: 4096×2160 (1,0), 25 fps, Progressive, 00:00:17:10
– Audio: 48000 Hz, Stereo, 16 bit
– Encoding Time: 00:01:23 cca cpu 40%, gpu 6%, memory 17GB
– Preset Used: H264 Match Source – High bitrate
– Video: 4096×2160 (1,0), 25 fps, Progressive, Software Encoding, 00:00:17:10
– Audio: AAC, 320 kbps, 48 kHz, Stereo
– Bitrate: VBR, 1 pass, Target 10,00 Mbps, Max 12,00 Mbps
– Encoding Time: 00:01:30 cca cpu 50%, gpu 6%, memory 14GB

i7-5820K overclocked to @4.6Ghz / GTX 1080TI overclocked
– Preset Used: DNxHR HQ 4K 25
– Video: 4096×2160 (1,0), 25 fps, Progressive, 00:00:17:10
– Audio: 48000 Hz, Stereo, 16 bit
– Bitrate:
– Encoding Time: 00:01:10 cca cpu 50%, gpu 8%, memory 18GB

Davinci Resolve 15 (not beta) (PC/Win10)

Effects added:

• applied LUT,
• remove noise (mostly green),
• stabilizer

Export in QuickTime Photo JPEG UHD :

• SSD to SSD,
• not overclocked
• no background software,
• cca 65% cpu load,
• cca 20% gpu load
• memory 25GB

Render time 2’50” LAST REVISION OF TEST 24.12.2018