Adobe After Effects: AMD Ryzen 5000 Series CPU Performance

Introduction

Over the last few years, AMD has been making great strides with their Ryzen and Threadripper processors, often matching – or beating – the performance from similarly priced Intel options. In fact, ever since AMD launched their Ryzen 3000-series processors last year, AMD and Intel have been neck-in-neck in After Effects performance, making either brand a great choice.

With the launch of AMD's new Ryzen 5000-series processors, however, it is very likely that AMD will be able to take a very solid performance lead over Intel. AMD hasn't added any more cores to their new line of processors, but among other things, they are touting a 19% IPC (instructions per clock) improvement. In theory, this could translate to almost a 20% performance increase over the previous generation, although it will likely heavily depend on the application.

In this article, we will be examining the performance of the new AMD Ryzen 5600X, 5800X, 5900X, and 5950X in After Effects compared to a range of CPUs including the Intel 10th Gen, Intel X-10000 Series, AMD Threadripper 3rd Gen, and the previous generation AMD Ryzen 3000-series processors. If you are interested in how these processors compare in other applications, we also have other articles for Premiere Pro, Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, and several other applications available on our article listing page.

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

Test Setup

Listed below are the specifications of the systems we will be using for our testing:

*All the latest drivers, OS updates, BIOS, and firmware applied as of October 26, 2020

In order to see how each of these configurations performs in After Effects, we will be using our PugetBench for After Effects V0.93 benchmark and After Effects version 17.5. This benchmark version includes the ability to upload the results to our online database, so if you want to know how your own system compares, you can download and run the benchmark yourself.

One thing we do want to note is that the pre-launch BIOS that is available for Ryzen motherboards is using AGESA 1.0.8. Soon after launch, there should be an update that adds support for AGESA 1.1.0 which is supposed to increase the performance of each Ryzen CPU by another few percent.

Benchmark Results

While our benchmark presents various scores based on the performance of each test, we also like to provide the individual results for you to examine. If there is a specific task that is a hindrance to your workflow, examining the raw results for that task is going to be much more applicable than the scores that our benchmark calculated.

Feel free to skip to the next sections for our analysis of these results to get a wider view of how each configuration performs in After Effects.

Benchmark Analysis: AMD Ryzen 5000-series vs Intel 10th Gen

As you might be able to guess with a quick glance at the charts above, the new Ryzen 5000-series CPUs from AMD are terrific for After Effects. Sure, the Ryzen 5 5600X only matches the fastest CPUs from the previous generation, but the new Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 processors can give you a nice 7-14% performance improvement over what was previously the fastest CPU for After Effects (the Ryzen 9 3950X).

Compared to the Intel Core i9 10900K (which is currently the best Intel CPU for After Effects), even the Ryzen 5 5600X is able to match it in terms of overall performance, even though it is nearly $200 less expensive. Comparing Intel and AMD at a more similar price point, the Ryzen 7 5800X is a solid 9% faster than the 10900K. And if you have a bit larger of a budget, that lead expands to 16-18% with the Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X respectively.

Compared to the AMD Ryzen 3000-series CPUs from the previous generation, these new processors are all roughly 15% faster than the CPUs they are replacing. They do have a 10-20% higher price tag as well, although in terms of absolute cost that works out to only a $50 increase which is fairly small if you look at it as a part of the overall cost of a computer.

While the AMD Threadripper CPUs are designed for a completely different type of workload, this performance gain also allows the Ryzen 5000-series to easily match or beat every single AMD Threadripper 3rd Gen CPU we tested.

Are the AMD Ryzen 5000-series or Intel Core 10th Gen better for After Effects?

Before AMD launched the Ryzen 5000-series, either an Intel 10th Gen CPU or an AMD Ryzen 3000-series CPU would end up giving you very similar performance in After Effects. With the new Ryzen 5000-series CPUs, however, AMD takes a solid lead over Intel. Compared to the Intel Core i5 10600K, the new Ryzen 5 5600X is a solid 16% faster. And at the higher end, the Ryzen 7 5800X, Ryzen 9 5900X, and Ryzen 9 5950X range from 9% to 18% faster than the Intel Core i9 10900K.

If you were to compare AMD and Intel processors based on price alone, AMD is anywhere from 9% to a staggering 41% faster than Intel. However, we do need to make clear that since the Intel X-series CPUs are not as strong in After Effects as the lower-priced Intel 10th Gen CPUs, that is being somewhat unfair to Intel. There is almost no reason to use the X-series when the Core i9 10900K is both less expensive and faster, so the true performance lead with the AMD Ryzen 5000-series peaks out closer to only 20%

Another factor that has changed recently is that the Gigabyte B550 Vision D motherboard – with fully certified Thunderbolt support – has launched and passed our internal qualification process. One of the reasons we tended to use the Intel 10th Gen CPUs over Ryzen when the performance was similar was because only Intel platforms had passed our qualification process for Thunderbolt. With this motherboard, Thunderbolt support is no longer as much of a factor when choosing between Intel 10th Gen and AMD Ryzen CPUs in our workstations.

Keep in mind that the benchmark results in this article are strictly for After Effects and that performance will vary widely in different applications. If your workflow includes other software packages (we have similar articles for Premiere Pro, Lightroom Classic, and Photoshop), you need to consider how the system will perform in those applications as well. Be sure to check our list of Hardware Articles to keep up to date on how all of these software packages – and more – perform with the latest CPUs.