Skip to content

Main Navigation

Puget Systems Logo
  • Solutions
    • Recommended Systems For:
    • Content Creation
      • Photo Editing
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Adobe Lightroom Classic
        • Adobe Photoshop
      • Video Editing
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Adobe After Effects
        • Adobe Premiere Pro
        • DaVinci Resolve
        • Foundry Nuke
      • 3D Design and Animation
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Autodesk 3ds Max
        • Autodesk Maya
        • Blender
        • Cinema 4D
        • Houdini
        • ZBrush
      • Real-Time Engines
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Game Development
        • Unity
        • Unreal Engine
        • Virtual Production
      • Rendering
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • OctaneRender
        • Redshift
        • V-Ray
      • Digital Audio
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Ableton Live
        • FL Studio
        • Pro Tools
    • Engineering
      • CAD
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Autodesk AutoCAD
        • Autodesk Inventor
        • Autodesk Revit
        • SOLIDWORKS
      • Photogrammetry
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • ArcGIS Pro
        • Agisoft Metashape
        • Pix4D
        • RealityCapture
    • Scientific Computing
      • Recommended Systems For:
      • Data Science
      • Machine Learning / AI
      • Scientific Computing
    • More
      • Recommended Systems For:
      • Compact Size
      • Live Streaming
      • NVIDIA RTX Studio
      • Quiet Operation
      • Virtual Reality
  • Products
    • Intel Core i7 & i9
      Workstations with 13th Gen Intel Core i7 & i9 processors on Z690 and Z790 chipsets
    • AMD Ryzen 7 & 9
      Workstations with AMD Ryzen 7000 Series processors on B650 and X670 chipsets
    • AMD Threadripper PRO
      Workstations with AMD Threadripper PRO 5000 WX processors on the WRX80 chipset
    • Intel Xeon W
      Workstations with Intel Xeon W 3300 processors on the C621E chipset
    • Rackmount & Server
      Servers and workstations in rackmount chassis
    • Custom Computers
      Customize a desktop workstation from scratch
    • Custom Servers
      Customize a rackmount server from scratch
    • QNAP Network Attached Storage
      Check out our external storage options as an authorized reseller for QNAP
    • Recommended Third Party Peripherals
      View our list of recommended peripherals to use with your new PC
  • Publications
    • Articles
    • HPC Blog
    • Blog Posts
    • Case Studies
    • Podcasts
    • Press
  • Support
    • Contact Support
    • Support Articles
    • Warranty Details
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Press Kit
    • Testimonials
    • Careers
  • Talk to an Expert
  • My Account
  1. Home
  2. /
  3. Hardware Articles
  4. /
  5. Premiere Pro CC 2019: Intel Core i9 9990XE Performance

Premiere Pro CC 2019: Intel Core i9 9990XE Performance

Posted on February 8, 2019 by Matt Bach
Always look at the date when you read an article. Some of the content in this article is most likely out of date, as it was written on February 8, 2019. For newer information, see our more recent articles.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Test Setup & Methodology
  • Benchmark Results
  • Benchmark Analysis
  • Is the Intel Core i9 9990XE good for Premiere Pro CC 2019?

Introduction

The Intel Core i9 9990XE 14-core CPU is a special, OEM-only, no warranty processor that only select system manufacturers like Puget Systems has access to via a once-per-quarter auction. While that means that availability and pricing may end up being highly fluid, the capabilities of this processor should (on paper at least) be second to none. This is not a product for the masses, but rather a niche offering for those looking to get the absolute best of the best Intel processor.

While specs alone are not a perfect representation of performance (especially across different product families), there are a few interesting things to point out about this CPU before getting into our Premiere Pro testing. First, it has a max Turbo Boost frequency of 5.1 GHz which means that it should perform much better than any other Intel X-series CPU in lightly threaded applications. At the same time, even if you are using all the cores, the Turbo Boost frequency only drops to 5.0 GHz which theoretically puts it at about the same performance as the Intel Core i9 9980XE in highly parallel applications.

On paper, this makes the i9 9990XE a bit of a golden CPU that should match or beat any other Intel consumer or enthusiast processor regardless of the application. In order to achieve this level of performance, however, this CPU draws about 50% more power than any other X-series CPU. While this obviously means that you need a beefy CPU cooling setup, you also need to have a motherboard and power supply that can provide said power.

 
  Core i9 9990XE Core i9 9980XE Core i9 9940X Core i9 9900K
# of Cores 14 18 14 8
Base clock 4.0 GHz 3.3 GHz 3.0 GHz 3.6 GHz
Max Turbo Boost 5.1 GHz 4.5 GHz 4.5 GHz 5.0 GHz
All-Core Turbo Boost 5.0 GHz 4.1 GHz 3.8 GHz 4.7 GHz
TDP 255 W 165 W 165 W 95 W
MSRP Auction $1,999 $1,399 $499

In this article, we are going to take a look at how the Intel Core i9 9990XE performs in Premiere Pro compared to the other Intel X-series CPUs as well as the Intel Core i9 9900K which is currently the king of single-threaded performance. We also have a number of other articles available looking at the performance of the i9 9990XE in a range of other applications that you can view by filtering our recent articles to just show the ones about Processors.

If you would like to skip over our test setup and benchmark result/analysis sections, feel free to jump right to the Conclusion section.

Test Setup & Methodology

Listed below are the systems we will be using in our Premiere Pro CC 2019 testing:

Intel X299 Test Platform
CPU Intel Core i7 9800X
Intel Core i9 9820X
Intel Core i9 9900X
Intel Core i9 9920X
Intel Core i9 9940X
Intel Core i9 9960X
Intel Core i9 9980XE
Intel Core i9 9990XE
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-U12DX i4
Motherboard Gigabyte X299 Designare EX
RAM 8x DDR4-2666 16GB (128GB total)
Video Card NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB
Hard Drive Samsung 960 Pro 1TB
OS Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (version 1803)
Intel Z390 Test Platform
CPU Intel Core i9 9900K
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-U12S
Motherboard Gigabyte AORUS Z390 Pro WiFi
RAM 4x DDR4-2666 16GB (64GB total)
Video Card NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB
Hard Drive Samsung 960 Pro 1TB
OS Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (version 1803)

To thoroughly benchmark Premiere Pro CC 2019 (ver. 13.0.0) on each processor, we used a range of codecs across 4K, 6K, and 8K resolutions:

Codec Resolution FPS Bitrate Clip Name Source
H.264 3840×2160 29.97 FPS 80 Mbps Transcoded from RED 4K clip
H.264 LongGOP 3840×2160 29.97 FPS 150 Mbps Provided by Neil Purcell – www.neilpurcell.com
DNxHR HQ 8-bit 3840×2160 29.97 FPS 870 Mbps Transcoded from RED 4K clip
ProRes 422 HQ 3840×2160 29.97 FPS 900 Mbps Transcoded from RED 4K clip
ProRes 4444 3840×2160 29.97 FPS 1,200 Mbps Transcoded from RED 4K clip
XAVC S 3840×2160 29.97 FPS 90 Mbps Provided by Samuel Neff – www.neffvisuals.com
RED (7:1) 4096×2304 29.97 FPS 300 Mbps A004_C186_011278_001 RED Sample R3D Files
CinemaDNG 4608×2592 24 FPS 1,900 Mbps Interior Office Blackmagic Design
[Direct Download]
RED (7:1) 6144×3077 23.976 FPS 840 Mbps S005_L001_0220LI_001 RED Sample R3D Files
RED (9:1) 8192×4320 25 FPS 1,000 Mbps B001_C096_0902AP_001 RED Sample R3D Files
We want to give a shout out to Neil Purcell and Samuel Neff. They both sent us a sample clip to use in our testing to help us ensure that our testing is applicable to professional video editors and colorists. Thank You!

Rather than just timing a simple export and calling it a day, we decided to create six different timelines for each codec that represent a variety of different type of workloads. For each of these timelines we tested both Live Playback performance in the program monitor as well as exporting via AME with the "H.264 – High Quality 2160p 4K" and "DNxHR HQ UHD" (matching media FPS) presets.

Lumetri Color

Heavy Transitions

Heavy Effects

4 Track Picture in Picture

4 Track MultiCam

4 Track Heavy Trimming

Benchmark Results

While our benchmark presents various scores based on the performance of each type of task, we also wanted to provide the individual results in case there is a specific task someone may be interested in. Feel free to skip to the next section for our analysis of these results.

Benchmark Analysis

Premiere Pro CC 2019 Core i9 9990XE Benchmark Performance

 

Our Premiere Pro benchmark looks at performance for both live playback and exporting using a wide range of codecs and timelines. This works out to just shy of 200 data points for each CPU, all of which combine into a single "Overall Score" that represents the overall performance of the system in Premiere Pro.

If we sort by the overall score, the Intel Core i9 9990XE is technically at the top of the chart, out-performing every other CPU we tested. It is only about 2% faster than the i9 9980XE, however, so it certainly isn’t going to revolutionize anyone’s workflow. Interestingly, this increase in performance is almost entirely from the slightly higher live playback performance where the i9 9990XE was about 5% faster than the i9 9960X and i9 9980XE. When exporting with Adobe Media Encoder (which is essentially the same as exporting directly through Premiere Pro), it simply performed on par with the i9 9980XE and i9 9960X.

Is the Intel Core i9 9990XE good for Premiere Pro CC 2019?

In terms of performance, the Intel Core i9 9990XE is currently one of the fastest processors available for Premiere Pro CC 2019. However, it is only a few percent faster than a more standard CPU like the Core i9 9980XE or i9 9960X, which is going to be very hard to notice in the real world.

Since the performance gain is so small, it is likely going to be hard to justify using the Core i9 9990XE for Premiere Pro. The much higher power draw (which means a more robust and often louder cooling system), difficulty in sourcing, and lack of a warranty from Intel are all pretty major drawbacks for a small 2% performance increase. If you simply want to have the best of the best CPU for Premiere Pro, however, this definitely fits the bill. In addition, it is also terrific in other applications like Adobe After Effects, which can make it a solid processor for mixed workflows.


With the very limited availability and power/cooling requirements of this CPU, there is no question that the i9 9990XE is a very niche product. The fact that only select OEMs can even get their hands on it should be an obvious indication that Intel doesn't intend for this processor to be used by mainstream users. This is intended for those that want the best of the best processor, no matter the hurdles they have to jump through in order to get it. And the fact is, this really is one of the highest performing all-around processors available right now.

While we only tested Premiere Pro in this article, we highly recommend checking out our recent processor articles where we look at (or will be looking at) the performance of the i9 9990XE in After Effects, Lightroom Classic, and Photoshop as well as a number of other applications.

CTA Image
Premiere Pro Workstations

Puget Systems offers a range of powerful and reliable systems that are tailor-made for your unique workflow.

Configure a System!
CTA Image
Labs Consultation Service

Our Labs team is available to provide in-depth hardware recommendations based on your workflow.

Find Out More!

Related Content

  • Intel Xeon W-3400 Content Creation Preview
  • NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada vs RTX A6000 for Content Creation
  • Adobe Premiere Pro: NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Performance
  • NVIDIA GeForce 40 Series vs AMD Radeon 7000 for Content Creation
View All Related Content

Latest Content

  • Basic Guide to Identify and Remove Malware
  • Should I Upgrade My Gpu
  • Case Study with Lost Boys Interactive
  • Samsung 990 Pro Critical Firmware Update
View All
Tags: 9800X, 9900K, 9900X, 9920X, 9940X, 9960X, 9980X, 9980XE, 9990XE, Intel 9th Gen, Intel X-series, Premiere Pro

Who is Puget Systems?

Puget Systems builds custom PCs tailored for your workflow

Extensive in-house testing
making you more productive and giving you more performance for your dollar

Reliable workstations
with fewer crashes and blue screens means more time working, less time waiting on your computer

Support that understands
your complex workflows and can get you back up and running ASAP

Proven track record
check out our customer testimonials and Reseller Ratings

Get Started

Browse Our Workstations

Fractal Design Define 7 Chassis with Puget Systems Logo

Select your workflow:

Content Creation
Engineering
Scientific Computing
More

Latest Articles

  • Basic Guide to Identify and Remove Malware
  • Should I Upgrade My Gpu
  • Case Study with Lost Boys Interactive
  • Samsung 990 Pro Critical Firmware Update
  • How To Use Linux Kernel Boot Options
View All

Post navigation

 Photoshop CC 2019: Intel Core i9 9990XE PerformanceLightroom Classic CC 2019: Intel Core i9 9990XE Performance 
Puget Systems Logo
Build Your Own PC Site Map FAQ
facebook instagram linkedin rss twitter youtube

Optimized Solutions

  • Adobe Premiere
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Solidworks
  • Autodesk AutoCAD
  • Machine Learning

Workstations

  • Content Creation
  • Engineering
  • Scientific PCs
  • More

Support

  • Online Guides
  • Request Support
  • Remote Help

Publications

  • All News
  • Puget Blog
  • HPC Blog
  • Hardware Articles
  • Case Studies

Policies

  • Warranty & Return
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Delivery Times
  • Accessibility

About Us

  • Testimonials
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

© Copyright 2023 - Puget Systems, All Rights Reserved.