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Best OS for Macbook Pro M1 Max 32GB
- Thread starter lostregr123
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Sonoma. Very smooth on My M1-Pro (16GB) and Apple has now shipped enough point releases to make it stable. (Usually I advocate staying on the previous OS until Spring, but Ventura had bad enough reviews I skipped it entirely myself).
Honorable mention to Monterey.
Honorable mention to Monterey.
Various driver framework issues got updated as far as I know, so I find I have a generally better perfomring system in certain cases with the newest one. But it seems slightly variable, so may be more specific versions worked better, but I'm definitely not recommending Monterey over the latest Sonoma.
I'm also thinking of going from DriverKit back to kext based audio drivers, so as long as I can do that still (which I can currently, just Apple keep threatening to remove kext support from OSes "soon") then I'd largely vote latest.
I'm also thinking of going from DriverKit back to kext based audio drivers, so as long as I can do that still (which I can currently, just Apple keep threatening to remove kext support from OSes "soon") then I'd largely vote latest.
Not over one generation, no. But keep updating your hardware with the latest OS and sooner or later you'll start seeing some slowdowns as the slower device tries to keep up with the flashy new features and general overhead of a new OS. It's happened to me numerous times on Macs, iPads, even an iPod Touch.
Think about it: every Apple device you've ever bought feels fast and smooth when you get it and then over time it mysteriously "slows down". That's not (generally) something happening to the hardware, the way your car wears out -- it's the fact that you're giving it more demanding software to run. Sometimes a series of OSes run very nicely on a single device, but "update rot" will eventually get you in the end.
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At least for the Mx series (and the early Intel machines), the newer the OS, the faster the OS. Apple is removing the Intel code and optimizing the code for AS. The same thing happened back in the PPC/ Intel transition, where Snow Leopard (10.6) was faster than Leopard (10.5) which was faster then Tiger (10.4) for Intel machines.
Would love it if my M1 Macs kept getting faster! But aside from those occasional optimization releases like you mention, every Mac I've ever owned has followed a downward performace arc over the ~5-6 years I've owned it.
I've also got an iPad Mini 4 that was absolutely eviscerated by some iPadOS update a few years ago. It was a joy to use when I first got it, but now it take ages to do anything at all.
My M1 Max has the latest Sonoma. I usually upgrade to .2X version of the upgraded os. Gives three months to evaluate the bugs and any fix. I don’t usually worry about upgrades till year 5 of my MBP. It’s too early to worry about upgrades with M1.
surely the main reason to update macOS from wot came with your mac is - features and functionality.
faster speeds may perhaps be an added benefit yet not the main reason to upgrade i wouldn't think …
if you're happy with the f+f of the OS you're on, then there's no need to upgrade.
faster speeds may perhaps be an added benefit yet not the main reason to upgrade i wouldn't think …
if you're happy with the f+f of the OS you're on, then there's no need to upgrade.
Keen to share, which new (major) version macOS is faster than the old one (with same hardware)? In general, it’s (almost) not possible. Newer version means additional features and extra computing powers and memory. In rare case, probably it can be “faster” (due to more optimized driver or fixes).
Snow Leopard was faster than Leopard.
All new versions of MacOS for Apple Silicon is faster than the predecessor.
But how do you measure "fast"?
Beyond the commonly used Snow Leopard comparison, the "tock" variant OS releases usually represented a performance increase over the "tick" variant (ie: Mountain Lion was faster than Lion; El Capitan was faster than Yosemite; High Sierra was faster than Sierra). That's not even getting into the fact that all of the initial Mac OS X releases were faster than their predecessor, mostly because Mac OS X 10.0 was a hot mess from a performance perspective so it had nowhere to go but up with 10.1 - 10.6.
An operating as complex as macOS always has room for optimization, especially since it's currently straddling two CPU architectures. The key is whether or not Apple cares to devote the resources to actually going through and doing it - they haven't had a "tock" release in several iterations but there are widely circulating rumors that they've internally turned a great deal of attention towards bugs and performance issues.
In my own experience on an M1 Pro 14" MBP it's as speedy today on Sonoma as it was when I first launched it under Monterrey. And several annoying bugs have been fixed in Sonoma, like the Dock stacks list view bug that's been around since Big Sur and certain SMB speed issues.
And how do you propose one might run this as their main OS on an Apple Silicon Mac, for which Puppy Linux has no bootable option?
It does matter. I remember Big Sur ran very badly on my MacBook Air M1. Sonoma is just fine though ˇˇ. Much better than Big Sur.
If you don't care about new features, you will still get more security updates and bug fixes with the latest OS update. For me it's a no brainer to update to the latest, and I didn't have any issue on Sonoma
There was no /s when I responded. It was a poorly considered post.
It was not poorly considered. I thought it would be obvious that it was sarcastic, as obviously Puppy Linux is silly to run as a main OS on a M1 MBP...but no, i have to add the /s for clarity lol
Sonoma runs perfectly on my M1 MBA. My other computer is still on Ventura and I don’t notice much of a difference if any. I think it’s best to run the latest macOS you can for security reasons (until the hardware can no longer keep up), but I usually wait for a dot release rather than upgrading right when the newest OS comes out. YMMV
i tried both os. I find Monterey more smooth and stable.
sorry boys
sorry boys