Should I upgrade or downgrade OSX for best performance?

[CoastalOR]

Would you be able to point me in the right direction for installing El Capitan? I've got a 2008 Macbook 4,1 (Black) running 10.7 with 4Gb of Ram, and plan on installing a new SSD this week. I've scoured these forums, but don't really see a clear answer on what works and what doesn't.

As bingeciren said, your MacBook will not support El Capitan. The max OS is 10.7.5.
Here is some details about your MacBook.

 

[DeltaMac]

Would you be able to point me in the right direction for installing El Capitan? I've got a 2008 Macbook 4,1 (Black) running 10.7 with 4Gb of Ram, and plan on installing a new SSD this week. I've scoured these forums, but don't really see a clear answer on what works and what doesn't.

I also have a early 2008 MacBook4,1.
An SSD would be a nice upgrade.
You can also add an additional 2GB of RAM for a maximum of 6GB.
However, I can tell you (clearly ) that you cannot install El Capitan on your MacBook.
Because El Capitan won't install, you also can't download El Capitan. The App Store won't let you, unless you download on another Mac that supports installing El Capitan directly.
And, again, even if you get the installer through another method, it won't install on your MacBook4,1.

You are limited to Lion as a native install. There are special install procedures to upgrade to Mountain Lion, but nothing is possible beyond Mountain Lion.

 

[MartyCan]

Doing a fresh install is fine, but afterwards if you use the migration assistant to transfer your old account settings, you are back to square one. All previous illnesses and diseases will return.

Therefore, while it is a good idea to do a fresh install, it is a lot of work to re install all the programs and re configure the settings without the migration assistant.

I finally found the curage to do a complete fresh install when my El Capitan wasn't running all that well. It took the better part of an entire Sunday to put everything back in order.

To answer the question of the OP: I would upgrade at least to Maverics because of its better memory use, and frankly I see no disadvantage for not running the latest version of the El Capitan, which is a speed and size improved version of the Yosemite.

So as a user with an older Mac (mid 2010, 27" 4 GB ram and dual core i5) would El Capitain help me at all? We're on Yosemite and honestly it is brutally slow.

 

[DeltaMac]

El Capitan on an SSD, and minimum of 8GB of RAM, will be a nice running system.

 

[h9826790]

It depends.

If you are looking for faster UI etc for day to daily ops. Usually earlier OS works better (Yes, Metal is here, but AFAIK, only the Integrated GPU on few Macbook use that for rendering UI, and no other Mac / OSX function use Metal at this moment).

IMO, the slowness in new OS is mainly caused by their design is base on SSD performance. And Apple seems don't care to optimise the OSX performance for HDD base user. Upgrade to SSD will mostly fix that problem.

On the other hand, new OS usually bring more functions to the user, not necessary faster, but sometimes those new functions make your life easier (especially if you are living in the Apple eco system with the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, etc).

Also, each version's of OSX will contain it's own GPU driver. Sometimes the GPU performance can be very different between OSXs. However, there is no rule on this matter. You have to test it one by one to find out which one is the best for you.

 

[bingeciren]

So as a user with an older Mac (mid 2010, 27" 4 GB ram and dual core i5) would El Capitain help me at all? We're on Yosemite and honestly it is brutally slow.

Theoretically it should help because El Capitan claims to be faster than Yosemite and occupies less disk space. However, I would suggest a clean install and not use the Migration Assistant. Most of the speed related complaints are caused by upgrades done over an existing OS that already has problems.

 

[enthusiastdre]

I also have a early 2008 MacBook4,1.
An SSD would be a nice upgrade.
You can also add an additional 2GB of RAM for a maximum of 6GB.
However, I can tell you (clearly ) that you cannot install El Capitan on your MacBook.
Because El Capitan won't install, you also can't download El Capitan. The App Store won't let you, unless you download on another Mac that supports installing El Capitan directly.
And, again, even if you get the installer through another method, it won't install on your MacBook4,1.

You are limited to Lion as a native install. There are special install procedures to upgrade to Mountain Lion, but nothing is possible beyond Mountain Lion.

Thanks very much. I plan on putting an SSD in it. What's the easiest way to install Mountain Lion? Does everything work?

 

[DeltaMac]

Purchase Mountain Lion from Apple
You will get a redemption code that you can use to download Mountain Lion through the App Store.
Install Mountain Lion.
That's pretty easy.
Here's what I would also do: The installer will automatically start after the download. Quit the installer at that time, and create a bootable installer for Mountain Lion that you can keep on an external USB flash drive. An 8GB flash drive is ideal for that. You can get easy instructions on how to make that bootable drive, or just download DiskMakerX to make that easy. The older DiskMakerX version 3.0.4 is for Mountain Lion.

The reason that I suggest that - if you need to reinstall for some reason, you don't need to download the installer again (installing with the downloaded installer deletes itself as part of the install!)

 

[enthusiastdre]

Purchase Mountain Lion from Apple
You will get a redemption code that you can use to download Mountain Lion through the App Store.
Install Mountain Lion.
That's pretty easy.
Here's what I would also do: The installer will automatically start after the download. Quit the installer at that time, and create a bootable installer for Mountain Lion that you can keep on an external USB flash drive. An 8GB flash drive is ideal for that. You can get easy instructions on how to make that bootable drive, or just download DiskMakerX to make that easy. The older DiskMakerX version 3.0.4 is for Mountain Lion.

The reason that I suggest that - if you need to reinstall for some reason, you don't need to download the installer again (installing with the downloaded installer deletes itself as part of the install!)

Thanks! Will do. I'm just worried about compatibility issues at this point. Where can I find information that outlines what works and what doesn't? (Wi-Fi, Trackpad, Graphics Acceleration, etc)

 

[redheeler]

Thanks very much. I plan on putting an SSD in it. What's the easiest way to install Mountain Lion? Does everything work?

Your MacBook 4,1 doesn't natively support Mountain Lion. You can follow @DeltaMac's instructions above only if you have another Mountain Lion-supported Mac, it will refuse to download after your purchase if you try on the MacBook.

After you get the installer into your Applications folder, you can use an app called MacPostFactor to create an installer which will install Mountain Lion on the unsupported MacBook. This video explains the process. Afterward everything should work just fine, you might even notice it running better than Lion due to the optimizations introduced in ML.