Introduction
When Adobe or Blackmagic introduces a new application update, our first step is to assess its impact on our Puget Bench benchmarks. We examine these results for a few reasons:
- Determining if a new benchmark group is necessary for consolidating profiles and aiding in results comparison
- Identifying unexpected performance changes or bugs for reporting to partners/press
- Assessing whether further testing is needed or if it might alter the hardware we recommend for our workstations
Recently, Adobe released After Effects version 26.2. Despite no notes on performance changes, our evaluation revealed significant improvements.
In After Effects 26.2, we discovered major performance boosts up to 3.8x for 3D workflows using the Advanced 3D renderer. The improvement varies by GPU brand, with Apple seeing the highest gains, followed by AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA.
Example Benchmark Results
When testing software updates with Puget Bench, we use a range of platforms with various CPU and GPU brands, not all of the latest generation, to ensure older hardware performs well. Our performance articles already focus on the newest hardware.
Here’s what we found comparing AE 26.2 to version 26.0:
The first chart shows platform performance in the “3D Score (Extended)” from Puget Bench for After Effects, with blue bars for version 26.0 and green for 26.2. Systems with NVIDIA GeForce cards had small boosts, while those with AMD Radeon, Intel Arc, and Apple M3/M5 Max saw major improvements.
The second chart quantifies these improvements. Apple benefitted the most, with around a 3.8x uplift on the M3 Max and M5 Max MacBook Pro, significantly improving their competitiveness with NVIDIA in 3D workflows.
AMD GPUs also increased significantly, with the Radeon™ 7900 XTX showing a 2.5x gain, and Intel GPUs with a 2.3x gain on the Arc™ B580.
NVIDIA gains were smaller: the GeForce RTX™ 3080 improved by about 1.1x, and the RTX™ 5080 by 1.04x (close to error margin). NVIDIA has been a top performer in After Effects 3D and remains so, but this update levels the field for AMD, Intel, and Apple.
Our Puget Bench QA platforms aren’t for direct component