The Poll: Is El Capitan Faster?

[fiveainone]

Holy Capitan, this IS fast! on 2012 rMBP 16mb ram, this thing has lagged/stuttered since Mavericks. Mission Control, more than 5 Safari windows, etc. It was pretty good on Yosemite, but more than 5-10 Safari windows open, and you go to expose or mission control, instant stutter.

I just opened 30 Safari windows. Going into MC the first time has a stutter as it loads, but after that, absolute 0!! And I'm super picky about stutters, haven't upgraded to iOS9 because of it. But El Capitan, You have impressed me. Opening Photos is much faster too. Everything's so smooth!! It IS like getting new hardware.

 

[GlenK]

My 2011 MBP hated Mavericks but loved Yosemite and I was afraid to update. But I must admit after a few hours of sloooowing down right after upgrade, it now runs quickly and smoothly, even better than Yosemite. So glad I updated now.
It seems to be running more smoothly as time goes by. Love the new features and love the new Notes!!

 

[fathergll]

2014 Retina iMac here


Only used it for 20 mins but its much faster for general use. Can't wait to get this sucker installed on my Mac Mini which is SLOW

 

[AtheistP3ace]

I have a completely maxed out rMBP. It's about 3 years old but was still running great on yosemite. I would find times when it stuttered a little. With El Capitan, granted I have only been running it for two days now, but have not seen those issues again. I am loving it!

 

[Razeus]

Everything is running smooth on my 2012 iMac. Faster, stable, looks cleaner. This is the best OS X yet.

 

[F1Mac]

Just installed it on a 2009 Mac Mini... No Metal of course. However I instantly noticed a HUGE difference when resizing Finder windows. It's MUCH faster than Yosemite and surprisingly smooth for this machine. So to anyone thinking the performance boost is only due to Metal my answer is a big no. So far, I have El Capitan on this 2009 MM and a mid-2012 MacPro, I have only made a few and small tests, but the UI is much smoother, Metal or not. So until I encounter a nasty bug, I say well done Apple!

 

[jktmagic]

imac early 2008, 3.06 (and 6GB ram). Much better for than both mavericks and yosemite for me

 

[joelank]

Definitely faster on my Mac Pro than Yosemite.

 

[F1Mac]

Funny I look at my previous post from a few months ago... El Cap is indeed "smoother" but its smoothness doesn't come cheap - much more taxing on the cpu than previous versions, example: resizing a Finder window (list view) takes up to 55% (!), on Mavericks it never goes above 25%. Same for scrolling and other basic tasks. My guess is that there's much more redrawing in El Capitan, so it simply needs more cpu power to achieve the cool effect... It looks faster, but that doesn't mean it actually is. Anyway, I know it's debatable

After dealing with graphic glitches in Pro Tools and Photoshop for 6 months, I've decided to go back to Mavericks. Pro Tools works perfectly now. If 10.11.5 or a future Pro Tools update fixes the UI issues, and if Photoshop glitches are fixed as well, I'll consider El Cap again. In the meantime, I'm happy with 10.9.5. I've also realized I barely use El Capitan's specific features (split view to name one, I've been using multiple monitors for years so I just don't care; also SIP - which I have to keep disabled for a number of reasons, and drivers...)

Between matching my iPhone's UI with my desktop OS and said OS' speed/efficiency, I still prefer the latter... Besides iOS 9.3.1 works just fine with 10.9.5.

 

[cynics]

I see no difference. However I'd like to note that I didn't have any laggy animation or anything in Yosemite. We should list the system because some, especially those with Intel graphics should have a more noticeable effect then others.

Late 13 iMac i5 3.5ghz nVidia 775m 24gb RAM w/ 1tb HDD

After using the public release since launch and keeping it up to date I feel performance has gotten worse since my previous post. Switching users is noticeably faster on that account. A fresh install is a temporary fix.

Don't get me wrong, still perfectly usable just slows down with time (for me). Very reminiscent of Windows Creep. It's most noticeable waking from a sleep, my routine now includes waking from sleep and going to make a coffee so I don't get annoyed with slow downs. Again....reason I left Windows when I needed to upgrade my computer.

Suffice it too say I feel that El Cap and iOS 9 were the opposite of what was advertised.

Haven't decided what I'm going to do yet. iMacs are awfully expensive to upgrade every 2-3 years. A home built PC that I can easily upgrade components might be more my style.