MP All Models Is my 2010 Mac Pro too old to use Adobe Premiere?

[mohalia]

I have a mid 2010 MacPro with the following specs:

Processor: 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 24 GB 1066 MHz DDR3
Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB

I traded my friend my 2015 iMac for this computer thinking it would be better for handling video work and music editing. Premiere worked fine on the iMac but I cannot get it to work on this computer due to extreme lagging which then leads to freezing and crashing. Apparently I do not have the GPU acceleration needed for Premiere. I know nothing about graphics cards and would greatly appreciate some advice on how to move forward. My friend said we can trade again and I can get the iMac back (although the iMac was having weird graphics card display glitches), or I can update the graphics card on this one. If I do the latter, does anyone have recommendations on what graphics card would work best with my set up? Is it possible to use a previous version of Adobe Premiere in the meantime? I cannot seem to find information for which version of Premiere would work best with no GPU Acceleration. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

 

[MacPoulet]

There’s a really good thread at the top of the forum about upgrades. I added a Sapphire RX 580 to my 2009 Mac Pro and enabled GPU acceleration. Premiere works as it should (and by that, not particularly well compare to something like DaVinci Resolve). I got a brand new card for $230 CDN a few months ago.

Do you have an SSD boot drive and a speedy scratch drive?

 

[Zwhaler]

Get Sapphire RX 580 and SSDs and hope that your CPU is good enough.

 

[wonderspark]

I'm using a 2009 Mac Pro with a lot of updates to make it run the latest version of Adobe Premiere, which is 14.1 under Creative Cloud 2020, so you can update yours to do the same. I edit 4K video for Dell Technologies all day, every day with this thing.

My 2009 Mac Pro specs are:
- W3680 6-core 3.33GHz Xeon CPU, 144.0.0.0 firmware, macOS High Sierra 10.13.6
- Nvidia GTX 980Ti 6GB (flashed with EFI)
- 48 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM (16x3)
- SSD boot disk (512GB), scratch disk (1TB), and backup boot disks (256 GB x2)
- Areca 1880-ix16 RAID card with 2GB memory, connected via mini-SAS to 12-disk RAID array made up of WD Ultrastar 4TB enterprise HDDs
- LG Blu-ray burner from way back
- Two APC 1500 Smart-UPS battery backups, one for Mac and RAID, one for monitors and other devices. (Clean power is important.)

Very recently, I updated from Yosemite 10.10.5 and CS6 to the latest CC 2020, but I'm extremely glad I did, because it's better than ever, now that I'm on High Sierra 10.13.6.

It will be a bit of a journey, but it's not that hard with all the awesome informational threads in this section. You'll need a new graphics card, probably new disks or a RAID disk system (which is what I have), and probably updates to firmware, depending on what OS you're using currently. (You didn't mention which you're on.)

It will take time and money to update it to work, and maybe that's something you're interested in... or you could pick up a newer system and have less hassle. I've been seeing the latest Mac Pro in Apple's refurbished section lately, and I get tempted to pick one up, but my old 2009 has been keeping the money rolling in for over a decade now, thanks to semi-regular updates.

If I had to start over now with a 2010, I'm not sure which way I'd go... fix it up, or trade for newer, better. I might even build a new PC, honestly. It's not going to keep up much longer, the 4,1 / 5,1 generation.

 

[tsialex]

I'm using a 2009 Mac Pro with a lot of updates to make it run the latest version of Adobe Premiere, which is 14.1 under Creative Cloud 2020, so you can update yours to do the same. I edit 4K video for Dell Technologies all day, every day with this thing.

My 2009 Mac Pro specs are:
- W3680 6-core 3.33GHz Xeon CPU, 144.0.0.0 firmware, macOS High Sierra 10.13.6
- Nvidia GTX 980Ti 6GB (flashed with EFI)
- 48 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM (16x3)
- SSD boot disk (512GB), scratch disk (1TB), and backup boot disks (256 GB x2)
- Areca 1880-ix16 RAID card with 2GB memory, connected via mini-SAS to 12-disk RAID array made up of WD Ultrastar 4TB enterprise HDDs
- LG Blu-ray burner from way back
- Two APC 1500 Smart-UPS battery backups, one for Mac and RAID, one for monitors and other devices. (Clean power is important.)

Very recently, I updated from Yosemite 10.10.5 and CS6 to the latest CC 2020, but I'm extremely glad I did, because it's better than ever, now that I'm on High Sierra 10.13.6.

It will be a bit of a journey, but it's not that hard with all the awesome informational threads in this section. You'll need a new graphics card, probably new disks or a RAID disk system (which is what I have), and probably updates to firmware, depending on what OS you're using currently. (You didn't mention which you're on.)

It will take time and money to update it to work, and maybe that's something you're interested in... or you could pick up a newer system and have less hassle. I've been seeing the latest Mac Pro in Apple's refurbished section lately, and I get tempted to pick one up, but my old 2009 has been keeping the money rolling in for over a decade now, thanks to semi-regular updates.

If I had to start over now with a 2010, I'm not sure which way I'd go... fix it up, or trade for newer, better. I might even build a new PC, honestly. It's not going to keep up much longer, the 4,1 / 5,1 generation.

Until Adobe starts to optimise Premiere - in reality all CS suite but Premiere seems the worst offender - for the Mac Pro 2019 hardware, it's a bad ROI getting a 2019 Mac Pro now for someone locked on Adobe products.

See how much people are bashing Premiere here, there is a lengthy thread about 2019 Mac Pro and Premiere. Resolve runs with 2019 Mac Pro, Premiere limps.

I'm not in any way an expert with this, there are people here much more familiar with Adobe products than me, but I'm seeing that lot of people locked into Adobe are keeping MP5,1 going on or moving to iMac Pro/2019 iMacs since nothing really benefits from 2019 Macs hardware config.

 

[Sugerc4t]

My two cents... I would say, SSD / NVMe far more important to Premiere than your graphics card (especially going from Nvidia to recommended AMD RX580 in Mojave). Everything is about the Previews/Cached Video/Audio with Premiere. The Radeon 5870 is long-in-the-tooth now with no Metal support. Defo need minimum RX580 Sapphire Pulse (Nitro+ is slightly faster, but a deeper brute to install and takes two power cables), which will allow you to go to Mojave, with its modern drivers and great NVMe M.2 driver support.

I personally feel CC2019 Premiere runs better for me, although Adobe have just released the fifth bug-fix update for CC2020 (or 2020 as they now called it) last night and it's running better than previously.

My vote, is get some at least Sata SSDs (max's at 530Mb read) into the MacPro, or some cheap NVMe M.2 (starts at about 670Mb Read if put into an external USB C 3.1 drive like the Anyoyo. Would defo say stick with Samsung and you'll not go wrong. Any of their 961 / 960 / 970 Evos (NOT 'Evo Plus', which need firmware updates done via a PC first) are a good place to start.

If you put this (with a fan-assisted PCIe) card directly into Slot 2 or 4 (RAID slot) you'll get minimum 1.5Gb Read (maximum possible on PCIe 2.0 which the MacPro 5.1 has). Only way to get faster is to RAID a couple of SSDs /NVMe's together as RAID 0, which will takes Read speeds to 2.8GB - 4.9Gb/sec+ real-world, with Write speeds not far behind.

However, compared to what you currently have 670Mb/Sec to 1.5Gb/Sec will be way faster working with Video than what you're used to.

Only advantage to faster GPU is with certain plug-ins which are GPU accelerated. Also gives advantage to RAM Previews in After Effects and certain GPU accelerated plug-ins.

Overall though, SSD/NVMe will provide a much bigger boost to Video workflow than ANYTHING a Graphics card can do for you. That's the mistake I made (in reverse) a few years ago not realising it, so worked the other way.

 

[wonderspark]

Interesting. Well, I've long heard that Adobe runs better on a PC, since about CS5 maybe. I mentioned I was still on CS6 as of a week ago, and I took a leap of faith that transitioning to CC 2020 would be a good move, and it has been for me, so far. I put a strong RAID system on it to address working with 4K video years ago, and it's proven worthy.

On the other hand, I just made the mistake of allowing the App Store to run the Security Update 2020-003, and it screwed up my GPU settings. I should have known, as it described it as a Public Beta. That's on me, I guess.

I have two screens, a 30" ACD via DVI, and a Dell monitor via DP, both from my 980Ti, and after the update, only runs on the Default Graphics Driver rather than the NVIDIA Web Driver. I even booted to a 10.13.6 boot disk prior to the update, and it still wouldn't let me switch back to web driver. I then booted back to an older backup boot disk with 10.10.5, and now it works again. Now I get to figure out how to get back to High Sierra without it being screwed up. I was really surprised that the backup prior to the update didn't fix it, but Yosemite boot disk did.

It's this kind of thing that makes me think perhaps a PC build is the best route in 2020. If you're saying the new Mac Pro struggles with Premiere, while a 2009 Mac Pro does not, that really makes me question Apple's competence. I'm irritated that they keep updating the OS every year, because it seems to me that other companies struggle to keep up with the constant changes. I know plenty of people that intentionally stay at least one OS behind, just to stay on a stable system, and I think that's a sad state of affairs.

Maybe it's all on Adobe, that they're just lazy and uninspired to keep up, or that they only care about PC users, since that's the overwhelming majority of users now, after Apple took so long to make a new Mac Pro.

I just have to find the balance of where to stand. Right now, that looks like either a PC, or my old Mac Pro with 10.13.6, but not with Security Update 2020-003. I was frozen in time for quite a while on Yosemite and CS6, and now it looks like I'll be frozen again someplace between there and the present. Good thing I'm under Stay-At-Home orders, and I can just fiddle with my Mac all day long until I get it sorted.

 

[kohlson]

A friend has both a 2010 (6x3.33) cMP. He continues to use CS6 Premiere with a series of ongoing projects. I have helped him make most of the upgrades (see the stickies - CPU, NVMe, etc). CS6 mostly worked before the upgrades, but is very happy now. 1080p from his C100. He has no plans to move off of CS6. If you're using CS6, this can be a way to go.

But to the point made by @tsialex, if you're committed to the CC environment, I would seriously reconsider using a Mac - especially one that is 10 years old and no longer supported.

 

[stjames70]

MP 5,1 running Windows 10 under boot camp anyone? I have the same set up as wonderspark (well, pretty close -- same RAID card, two RAID 10 arrays, one made with SSDs, the other with standard spinners, dual 6-core Xeons, three SSD boot drives (two OSX mirrors, and a Win10 dedicated SSD), running Mojave. My son was using it to edit and post YouTube streams of his games. The sweat going in was worth more than the hardware, so I will keep this puppy running until it can't anymore

 

[MacPoulet]

Interesting. Well, I've long heard that Adobe runs better on a PC, since about CS5 maybe. I mentioned I was still on CS6 as of a week ago, and I took a leap of faith that transitioning to CC 2020 would be a good move, and it has been for me, so far. I put a strong RAID system on it to address working with 4K video years ago, and it's proven worthy.

On the other hand, I just made the mistake of allowing the App Store to run the Security Update 2020-003, and it screwed up my GPU settings. I should have known, as it described it as a Public Beta. That's on me, I guess.

I have two screens, a 30" ACD via DVI, and a Dell monitor via DP, both from my 980Ti, and after the update, only runs on the Default Graphics Driver rather than the NVIDIA Web Driver. I even booted to a 10.13.6 boot disk prior to the update, and it still wouldn't let me switch back to web driver. I then booted back to an older backup boot disk with 10.10.5, and now it works again. Now I get to figure out how to get back to High Sierra without it being screwed up. I was really surprised that the backup prior to the update didn't fix it, but Yosemite boot disk did.

It's this kind of thing that makes me think perhaps a PC build is the best route in 2020. If you're saying the new Mac Pro struggles with Premiere, while a 2009 Mac Pro does not, that really makes me question Apple's competence. I'm irritated that they keep updating the OS every year, because it seems to me that other companies struggle to keep up with the constant changes. I know plenty of people that intentionally stay at least one OS behind, just to stay on a stable system, and I think that's a sad state of affairs.

Maybe it's all on Adobe, that they're just lazy and uninspired to keep up, or that they only care about PC users, since that's the overwhelming majority of users now, after Apple took so long to make a new Mac Pro.

I just have to find the balance of where to stand. Right now, that looks like either a PC, or my old Mac Pro with 10.13.6, but not with Security Update 2020-003. I was frozen in time for quite a while on Yosemite and CS6, and now it looks like I'll be frozen again someplace between there and the present. Good thing I'm under Stay-At-Home orders, and I can just fiddle with my Mac all day long until I get it sorted.

We use Dell workstations in our labs for Adobe Creative Cloud, Blender, Maya, 3ds Max, Game Engines, etc. They're pretty beefy and Adobe software runs like crap on them too. A lot of us in my department would love to ditch Adobe, but they're pretty essential for what we (and our students) do unfortunately.

 

[wonderspark]

Well, went for a nice, long hike in the local wildlife sanctuary while my Mac updated to 10.11.6. Came up in default driver, updated Nvidia web driver, rebooted, and I have two screens in El Capitan...so far, so good. Now to see if I can do like I did before, update to High Sierra, skipping over Sierra, without getting that Security Update 2020-003. Fingers crossed.

 

[wonderspark]

Didn't work, but I tried something I should have tried first thing this morning, but forgot about... PRAM reset.
I reset NVRAM, booted into 10.13.6, and it finally worked. Booted into backup 10.13.6, and it worked. So now, I'm cloning my backup from yesterday to the main boot to get rid of APFS on my main boot, and all should be back to normal.

 

[orph]

if you can use resolve, the demo version is amazing and worth a go.
i used XML to export my old PP projects to resolve.
(still have a lot of legacy PP projects backed up)

to be fair i used PP CS6 last and never had any real problems, used proxys and downscale for playback loved that the UI was more like fc7 (missed the lables from FC7 no idea if that's been updated yet or not) but hated the colour grading doing round trips to speedgrade was a pain!

slowly started moving to resolve during my CS6 days and after resolve got timelines i jumped over.
FCX is also worth a look, last i used it perfomance was amazing but I do love grading and resolve just has me there.
(not used FCX in ages so may be better now)

do miss the adobe audio app tho was super easy for a audio newbe like me.

relay did like CS6 a lot but my subscription ran out and resolve had my love by then.

resolve is a much better and newer app, it will max out the CPU/GPU a lot more than PP CS6 and from what i have seen adobe still has a lot of legacy code holding PP back.

you want to look at upgrading the GPU, the RX 580 8GB (used) is the best value option, if you dont have an SSD to boot from that's a big upgrade and the CPU is not to hard to swap.
i gess it comes down to how much you want to spend on upgrades.

 

[wonderspark]

Got it all sorted now, finally. I'm back to 10.13.6, with Security Update 2020-002, NOT -003 Public Beta, both screens work, NVIDIA Web Driver works, Adobe Premiere CC 2020 works smoothly like it had all week before this morning.
Such a relief! Thank you for the support, all!

 

[bsbeamer]

I'm seeing that lot of people locked into Adobe are keeping MP5,1 going on or moving to iMac Pro/2019 iMacs since nothing really benefits from 2019 Macs hardware config.

Can verify this. Core i9 is really what Adobe seems to have been written for. Most client offices are now nearly exclusively on iMac/Pro and even some Mac Mini’s. MBP 16” gives the MP5,1 a huge run for it’s money with much lower base clock speeds. Most are hoping for 2-3+ years out of this to “wait out” the further development and updates of MP7,1.

With the majority of people in work from home capacities for the foreseeable future, the iMac just makes a lot of sense right now for a lot of situations. eGPU and TB3 expansion help a lot. Not exactly cheap, but the ability to move and repurpose between machines nearly on the fly is really helpful for some workflows.

 

[tommy chen]

if you can use resolve, the demo version is amazing and worth a go.
.......

there is no "DEMO" version of resolve

a FREE and a STUDIO for 300.- lifetime

and with the dongle version of resove studio
you can also use the full version of fusion studio!

 

[orph]

@IndioX well, demo/light/free its padantics
it is limited but not by much worth a go

to be fair i dont know what it's ofcialy called.

 

[tommy chen]

but, it is not a demo
only restricted to UHD, no 3D, no noise reduction
and limited to one GPU

and for all others it is a free full version
for editing and color correction

 

[TzunamiOSX]

MacPro 2x3,33 GHz, 48 GB RAM, RX 580 working with Videos up to 1080p and no Problems with Premiere CS6 or CC under HS.