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People with Intel Macs on Big Sur -- How's it running?

collin_

collin_

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 19, 2018
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I have a 16 inch MacBook Pro on Catalina and I think I'm finally going to upgrade it to Big Sur this week. I'm a bit hesitant though because I feel like Apple mostly had Apple Silicon devices in mind when making this OS. People who have done this already, how has it been running? I'm going to do a clean install as usual.
 
Extremely happy with Big Sur flying on my Intel Mac Mini 2018, no issues at all with it.
Me too did a clean BS install.
Currently using BS 11.3 beta8.
 
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2017 Air here - no problem, and I did the straightforward download and install over top of the previous Catalina.

That said, I've not exactly been Wowed by the end result. Meh. Its an OS. It runs the stuff the last one did. If it does it faster, its not anything perceptible in real world usage here.
Obviously this response might be entirely different on an M1 - but that has more to do with the processor abilities, than the OS.

The only one (marginally) useful upgrade that I have used occasionally is the ability to trim top / tails of video within Photos, rather than the more convoluted process for the same thing in iMovie.
 
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Now I know that the 2016 through 2018 MacBook Pros and Airs will run Big Sur OK. That’s good to know.

I‘ve tried Big Sur twice on my 2013 MacBook Pro and it runs fine and I‘ve had no difficulties with it. It is on the very low end of supported systems, though. It just seems a bit warm, and not by feel - it jumps into the 60’s C at peak, then after a minute or two, it comes back down to the mid 40’s. I’m running Macs Fan Control at 3500 RPM.

I’m not a heavy user; just office work. Am I overthinking this; is Big Sur going to shorten it’s life?
 
I highly suggest to use 1TB external SSD and install brand-new Big Sur.

you could use Big Sur in external SSD for a few weeks.

if MBP you have is OK, software you are using are not crashed, battery life is strong enought for you,
and you didn't see lagging, you could upgrade to Big Sur in main SSD.
 
One of my attempts was with a clean Internet Recovery install of Big Sur, the other was an upgrade from Mojave. I used each build for a few weeks. I had no problems with either build in normal use.

What I don't know is how much CPU heat is normal and how much is excessive. It took me a long time to get to the point where I could buy this laptop, and I want to keep it for as long as possible.
 
I went from Mojave to Big Sur. I was hanging on to a couple of 32 bit applications I needed. I just did the standard install over the top of Mojave. 2019 27" i9 iMac. One benefit I saw was that some things had broken in Mojave and started working again. I use the web version of outlook for my corporate email. That lost the ability to browse for attachments. Collaboration with iWork apps stopped working. All that came back with Big Sur.

As far as I can see there are no problems, but I'm not a very intense user. FCPX, Affinity apps, iWork, AppleScript.
 
OSX Big Sur 11.4 Public Beta 2, flying on my Intel macmini 2018 (32 gig RAM).
I did a CLEAN install of the first official Big Sur release and then did all of the public beta incremental updates after that.
I re-installed all my Apps after the initial CLEAN BS install.

I love Big Sur !
 
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collin_ said:
I have a 16 inch MacBook Pro on Catalina and I think I'm finally going to upgrade it to Big Sur this week. I'm a bit hesitant though because I feel like Apple mostly had Apple Silicon devices in mind when making this OS. People who have done this already, how has it been running? I'm going to do a clean install as usual.
Click to expand...
Don't make that mistake bro. I got the popping sound back and I'm also facing some display flickering issues.
 

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Pranav B S said:
Don't make that mistake bro. I got the popping sound back and I'm also facing some display flickering issues.
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I haven't had any issues. Did you do a clean install? If not, then I would do one since you're experiencing problems.
 
My initial upgrade to Big Sur was fine. The upgrade to 11.3 and 11.3.1 were disasterous.

1. The update broke the thunderbolt bridge network adapter (to a QNAP). Besides not working I couldn't shutdown my system as it would panic on shutdown and reboot. Spent 3 hours diagnosing with Apple Support. Supposedly fixed in 11.4. Have to follow up with Apple Support.

2. Homesharing movies is broken. 4k movies from Movies Anywhere will not play. Haven't worked this one yet as other problems were more critical.

3. After the update to 11.3.1 airplay to other devices (receiver, Homepods) was totally broken. Would select a device and after a couple of minutes I would get an error message that it would not connect. Problem was sent to development. However a complete reinstall of the OS did fix the problem.

Have never had so many serious OS problems at the same time.
 
HDFan said:
My initial upgrade to Big Sur was fine. The upgrade to 11.3 and 11.3.1 were disasterous.

1. The update broke the thunderbolt bridge network adapter (to a QNAP). Besides not working I couldn't shutdown my system as it would panic on shutdown and reboot. Spent 3 hours diagnosing with Apple Support. Supposedly fixed in 11.4. Have to follow up with Apple Support.

2. Homesharing movies is broken. 4k movies from Movies Anywhere will not play. Haven't worked this one yet as other problems were more critical.

3. After the update to 11.3.1 airplay to other devices (receiver, Homepods) was totally broken. Would select a device and after a couple of minutes I would get an error message that it would not connect. Problem was sent to development. However a complete reinstall of the OS did fix the problem.

Have never had so many serious OS problems at the same time.
Click to expand...
Very strange! Sorry to hear that
 
private: mbp 13" 2020 upgrade -> runs excellent
work: mbp 15" 2018 upgrade -> runs excellent
I did not run into any problems whatsoever.
 
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Benz63amg said:
It's excellent, Why wouldn't it be? (It's not like Big Sur just came out). its far superior to Catalina in every way.
Click to expand...

SjoukeW said:
private: mbp 13" 2020 upgrade -> runs excellent
work: mbp 15" 2018 upgrade -> runs excellent
I did not run into any problems whatsoever.
Click to expand...

skottichan said:
I did an clean install on a 2019 27" with a 1TB fusion, runs great, haven't had bugs.
Click to expand...

Same here, no issues with my late 2014 iMac 27" with SSD. I rarely have issues with software releases.
 
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Totally smooth. One of the easiest OS transitions I've had (though for me most've been fine). I waited until the .3 version. Installed over Catalina. 2018 Mini. Audio professional here. Logic and all my third-party plugins fine.
 
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