Video Workstations for
Premiere Elements

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

What is Premiere Elements?

Premiere Elements, from Adobe, is a stripped-down version of Premiere Pro and offers more limited set of features and functionalities, aimed to cater for prosumers. It is however still capable of addressing many video editing needs and can handle footage up to 4K.

What makes the best system for Premiere Elements?

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

What CPU should I choose for Premiere Elements?

As explained above, a system that will be used for a mixture of Premier Elements functions needs to strike a good balance between CPU and GPU(s). Like most digital content creation (DCC) applications Premier Elements 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 5 or Intel Core Ultra 5, then upgrading to either AMD Ryzen 7 or Intel Core Ultra 7 or ultimately a Ryzen 9 or Core Ultra 9 if budget allows.

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

A fast GPU is crucial for a responsive DCC experience in Premiere Elements, with more powerful models providing a more noticeable benefit when working with complex and high resolution video. We recommend the NVIDIA RTX GPU range, choosing your card depending on your budget.

How much RAM is recommended for Premiere Elements?

The minimum RAM that we recommend for Premiere Elements is 32GB for HD content, upgrading to 64GB or 128GB 4K projects.

What storage does Premiere Elements need?

We always recommend using an SSD for the boot drive that will host your OS, Premiere Elements 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 Elements 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 SSD drive capacity, this will very much depend on your number of files and the model sizes. You should also consider the space required by other applications and their associated files too.

Recommended Premiere Elements Workstation Specifications

Workstation specifications
	High-End (8K)	Mid-Range (4K)	Entry-Level (HD)
CPU	AMD Ryzen 9 / Intel Core Ultra 9	AMD Ryzen 7 / Intel Core Ultra 7	AMD Ryzen 5 / Intel Core Ultra 5
RAM	64GB	64GB	32GB
GPU	High-end NVIDIA GeForce RTX	Mid-range NVIDIA GeForce RTX	Entry-level NVIDIA GeForce RTX