Adobe Premiere Pro: 13th Gen Intel Core vs AMD Ryzen 7000

Introduction

The last few months have been hectic in terms of new hardware. First, AMD launched their Ryzen 7000 Series of processors along with the new AM5 chipset in late September. Then, in early October, Intel launched their Arc A750 and A770 discrete GPUs, followed quickly by NVIDIA starting their rolling launch of the GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs on October 12th, starting with the GeForce RTX 4090 24GB.

And now, Intel is launching their new 13th Gen Intel Core processors – code-named "Raptor Lake". Unlike AMD's Ryzen 7000 Series, the Intel 13th Gen processors should be able to be dropped into any motherboard that supports the previous 12th Gen CPUs, and maintain support for both DDR4 and DDR5 memory. We did get a bump in terms of what RAM speed is officially supported, but from a platform view, the 13th Gen is pretty much a drop-in upgrade from 12th Gen.

In this article, we will be using our PugetBench for Premiere Pro 0.95.5 benchmark paired with Premiere Pro 22.6.2 to examine the performance of the new Intel Core 13th Gen CPUs. As a comparison, we will be including the previous generation 12th Gen processors, as well as their primary competition – the AMD Ryzen 7000 Series. In addition, while we won't be calling out the results specifically in this article, the raw results table in the next section also includes the AMD Ryzen 5000 Series since Ryzen 7000 was only recently released.

If you want to read more about the new Intel Core 13th Gen, and what sets them apart from the previous generation, we recommend checking out our main Intel Core 13th Gen Processors Content Creation Review article. That post includes more detailed information on the CPU specifications, testing results for a range of other applications including Lightroom Classic, After Effects, Photoshop, and Unreal Engine; as well as all the test setup details for both the hardware and software used in our testing.

Raw Benchmark Data

While our benchmark presents various scores based on the performance of each test, we also like to provide 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.

Intel Core 13th Gen vs AMD Ryzen 7000 for Premiere Pro

To start off our analysis, we wanted to look at how the new 13th Gen Intel Core CPUs compared to AMD's Ryzen 7000 series. The MSRP pricing for Intel and AMD don't exactly match, but in most cases, the comparisons we are making in the chart above are looking at CPUs that have an MSRP within $40 of each other. The exception to this is the Core i9 13900K vs Ryzen 7950X since Intel doesn't currently have a CPU that is on par with the Ryzen 7950X in terms of MSRP ($699). We didn't want to leave the 7950X out, so we decided to include the 13900K twice. First versus the 7900X (a price/performance comparison), and second versus the 7950X (a best-of-each-generation comparison)

If you are interested in the exact MSRP for each of these CPUs, we have a full breakdown in our main 13th Gen Intel Core Processors Content Creation Review article.

At first glance, things are looking pretty darn great for Intel! In terms of the Extended Overall Score from our Premiere Pro benchmark, the Intel Core 13th Gen CPUs are around 50% faster than the equivalent AMD Ryzen 7000 CPU, with only the Ryzen 7950X lowering this down to about 30%. What you don't see is that our overall score is a bit skewed due to just how much faster Intel CPUs with Quick Sync are when running the 4K H.264 and 8K HEVC sets of tests.

Recently, we have been breaking down our results based on the codec type. This isn't natively built into the current version of our benchmark, but it helps highlight how good different CPUs are at handling different types of codecs.

If you switch to chart #2, you get a clear look at just what is throwing off the overall score. For longGOP codecs like H.264 and HEVC, the Intel 13th Gen CPUs are anywhere from 60% to 2x faster than AMD. This gap could potentially be closed a bit if/when hardware decoding and encoding is fixed with the Ryzen 7000 iGPU (more information on this in our Ryzen 7000 Premiere Pro article), but it is going to be very difficult for AMD to make up this amount of ground. In addition, Intel Quick Sync has another advantage in that it is currently the only method to get hardware decoding support for HEVC 4:2:2 10-bit media, which is growing in popularity. (A full table of hardware decoding support in Premiere Pro is available here)

If we move on to chart #3, things get a bit more reasonable. When working with ProRes footage, Intel has a strong lead at the bottom end with the Core i5 13600K coming in at 24% faster than the Ryzen 7600X. This is reduced as you go up the product stack, however, with Intel and AMD being functionally equivalent once you get to the Core i9 13900K.

Finally, in chart #4 we are looking at performance when working with RED RAW media. Intel again holds a lead here, and this time, it extends to the Core i9 13900K. Compared to equivalently priced CPUs from AMD's Ryzen 7000 line, Intel 13th Gen is around 20-30% faster, with the larger gains happening at the bottom of the product stack. However, the Ryzen 7950X is able to give AMD one of their few wins, beating the 13900K by 12% for these tests.

Intel Core 13th Gen vs Intel Core 12th Gen for Premiere Pro

In the previous section, we saw that the new 13th Gen Intel Core CPUs are across the board faster than the AMD Ryzen 7000 Series processors in Premiere Pro. This is great as far as the typical "Intel vs AMD" comparison goes, but we also wanted to look at how much faster the 13th Gen processors are compared to the previous 12th Gen CPUs.

Just like the previous section, we want to mention that we are including the Core i9 13900K twice. Intel currently doesn't have a 13th Gen equivalent to the Core i9 12900KS, but we didn't want to leave it out. So, we decided to show the 13900K compared to both the 12900K and 12900KS.

In terms of equivalent models, we are looking at roughly a small, but respectable 10% performance gain overall with the new 13th Gen CPUs. This roughly holds true for both our longGOP (H.264/HEVC) and ProRes tests, but we did see a much larger increase when working with RED RAW media (chart #4). If you work with this type of footage, the 13th Gen CPUs are closer to 30% faster than the previous 12th Gen processors.

How well do the Intel Core 13th Gen CPUs perform in Premiere Pro?

When AMD launched their Ryzen 7000 processors just last month, there were a number of areas in Premiere Pro where they held a lead over Intel. With the new 13th Gen CPUs, however, Intel has taken the lead almost across the board. The 13th Gen CPUs are a decent 10% faster than the previous 12th Gen CPUs in terms of overall Premiere Pro performance, but they give a larger gain in a few key areas (such as RED RAW) where AMD has recently had an advantage.

Currently, we like to break down performance in Premiere Pro according to the three main types of codecs we test:

• LongGOP (H.264/HEVC) – Intel Core CPUs with Quick Sync are extremely strong here, making the 13th Gen CPUs the clear choice over AMD Ryzen 7000. (Unless you are using a flavor without hardware decoding support in Premiere Pro, in which case, it often will be bad no matter what hardware you have).
• Intraframe (ProRes, DNx, etc.) – The Intel Core i5 13600K and i7 13700K have a strong 13-24% lead over Ryzen 7600X and 7700X, but AMD and Intel are roughly on par once you get up to the Core i9 / Ryzen 9 level.
• RAW (RED, etc.) – AMD holds the top spot with the Ryzen 7950X, but on a dollar-per-dollar basis, Intel 13th Gen CPUs are 20-34% faster than their Ryzen 7000 counterparts.

If your budget is in the Core i5/i7 range, Intel is the clear choice over AMD with their Core i5 13600K and i7 13700K. The Core i9 13900K also outperforms the Ryzen 7900X in most cases, but the more expensive Ryzen 7950X does allow AMD to take the lead for heavy codecs like RED RAW. But, if you work with H.264 or HEVC media at all (which is going to be extremely common at this price point), Intel is pretty much always going to be the better choice.

Keep in mind that the benchmark results in this article are strictly for Premiere Pro and that performance will vary widely in different applications. If your workflow includes other software packages, we highly recommend checking out our Intel Core 13th Gen Processors Content Creation Review article which includes results and links to in-depth testing for a range of other applications including After Effects, Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, DaVinci Resolve, and Unreal Engine.