PCs for video editing and content creation

Are you a professional or amateur video editor looking for the perfect video workstation for 4K video production? Then you’ve come to the right place with our PCs for video production, which are specifically optimized for Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects. We’ve analyzed benchmarks and studies from the most reputable hardware magazines and, based on that, offer you the best PCs for 4K video editing:

How many CPU cores does a PC need for video editing?

Video editing performance still depends largely on the video workstation’s processor. For these applications, a balance of high clock speeds and multiple processor cores is recommended. Intel’s Core Ultra 7 and Core Ultra 9 series processors, as well as AMD’s Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 CPUs, deliver solid performance for Adobe After Effects.  

Adobe Premiere Pro scales better with a high number of cores. That’s why AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors offer the best possible performance here.

To ensure your CPU delivers its best performance, we equip our video workstations exclusively with high-quality components—such as motherboards and RAM—from reputable manufacturers.

PC for 4K video editing – and which graphics card?

For a video editing PC used primarily for Adobe After Effects, it’s important to use a supported graphics card. For After Effects, the chosen graphics card doesn’t have a significant impact on HD video editing, so you can already achieve good results in video production with an NVIDIA RTX 5060.
 

For a video workstation running Adobe Premiere Pro CC, however, you’ll need a more powerful GPU if you’re using multiple GPU-accelerated effects for graphics editing. For the best results, you should opt for an NVIDIA RTX 5060 up to an RTX 5070 Ti or a current Radeon model.

How much RAM do you need for Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects?

For an Adobe After Effects video workstation, the amount of RAM required depends on the project’s resolution, color depth, and the desired frame rate during playback. For simple projects, we therefore recommend 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and 64GB of DDR5 RAM for more demanding projects.
 

The amount of RAM required for an Adobe Premiere Pro video workstation is determined by the complexity, length, and resolution of the project. In general, we recommend 32GB of RAM for 1080p resolution, 64GB for 4K, and 128GB for higher resolutions.

SSD or HDD for video editing on a computer?

Generally, there are three storage solutions to consider for a PC used for video editing: SSDs, NVMe drives, and mechanical hard drives. While mechanical hard drives are slow, they typically offer more storage space at lower prices than fast SSDs and NVMe drives. However, due to their lower speed, they are less suitable as system and swap drives.
 

SSDs are many times faster than HDDs, but also significantly more expensive. These drives are ideal as system drives and swap drives. Programs and projects stored on the SSD can also be opened much faster than from a traditional HDD.
 

NVMe drives are up to 5 times faster than SSDs, but they also cost significantly more. In most cases, an NVMe drive will not noticeably increase system speed, since even with standard SSDs, system performance is no longer limited by the speed of the hard drive. Like SSDs, these drives are well-suited as system and swap drives.
 

For a PC used for video editing, we recommend a primary system drive (SSD/NVMe) on which the operating system and necessary applications are installed. With an SSD, the operating system and applications load noticeably faster than with a traditional HDD.
 

It is recommended to store projects and videos on a secondary data drive (SSD/NVMe). A separate SSD or NVMe drive is extremely useful for this purpose. Especially for 4K video editing, a tertiary cache drive (SSD/NVMe) can be beneficial for storing cache and swap files. Using an NVMe drive can significantly boost performance, particularly for Adobe After Effects.
As an optional storage drive, we recommend a slow but large and cost-effective HDD, which is used for long-term storage of projects.

If you prefer to configure your own workstation using our workstation configurator, or simply want to browse through all our recommendations to buy a workstation, that’s certainly possible as well. If you’re looking for a rendering PC or a 3D workstation to complete large projects, you’ll find them in the corresponding categories. If you’re running programs that require a supported Quadro RTX GPU, you should opt for a Quadro RTX workstation.

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