After Effects & Motion Graphics: The Right PC for Ugandan Creators

Why After Effects doesn't scale well with core count

Much of After Effects' timeline preview and many effects are still single-threaded or lightly multi-threaded, which means a CPU with very high clock speed on a handful of cores (like a Ryzen 7 9800X3D) will often outperform a chip with twice the cores but a lower clock speed, for the same money.

Where the GPU does help

GPU acceleration in After Effects mainly speeds up specific effects and preview rendering, not the whole timeline. A mid-range GPU with good driver support (RTX 4060 Ti or similar) is enough -- there's limited benefit from a top-tier card unless you're also doing heavy Premiere or DaVinci Resolve work alongside it.

RAM and RAM Preview

After Effects' RAM Preview feature literally caches frames in memory -- more RAM means longer, smoother previews before it has to re-render. 32GB is a comfortable working amount for most motion graphics projects; go higher if you're working with 4K footage or many layered comps at once.

Fast storage matters more than people expect

Motion graphics projects often involve large footage files, cached previews and project auto-saves all happening at once. A fast NVMe SSD noticeably reduces stutter and load times compared to even a fast SATA SSD, let alone a hard drive.

Our recommendation for Ugandan motion designers

Prioritise CPU clock speed over core count, get 32GB RAM, a mid-range GPU, and a fast NVMe drive. That combination handles the vast majority of freelance and agency motion graphics work in Uganda without overspending on cores you won't fully use.