After Effects System Requirements _verified_ Jun 2026

After Effects is not GPU-accelerated in the way Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve is. Most effects are CPU-only. GPU helps with:

After Effects traditionally favored high clock speeds, but the modern engine now utilizes multiple cores more effectively. after effects system requirements

(Resolution width × height × color depth × frames in preview) × (layers + effects) = RAM requirement. After Effects is not GPU-accelerated in the way