I'm about to upgrade from Premiere Elements 4 and get a new Windows computer specifically for video editing. I'm happy with PE’s editing features, but the editing and burning process is much too slow. I’m sure a faster processor, more RAM, and better video card would help. Since I’m upgrading for speed, I’ve done a little research and found out about Pro’s Mercury Playback Engine, CUDA processing (with the right graphics card), and even read about the benefits of a Solid State hard drive. Before investing in all that expensive hardware, I’d like to know how PE’s processing and encoding system compares to that of Premiere Pro CS6. With optimal systems for each program, how does their processing power translate into length of time to encode per minute of video? Unless Pro is a whole lot faster, I don't think I can justify the extra expense for the software and hardware.
I understand PE 11 can run as a 64 bit application, but is it multithreaded? I've looked at the system requirements for PE 11, but I think what is listed is the minimum--what are the maximum specs without going over what it's capable of utilizing? Thanks for providing the information that will help me decide how much upgrading to do.