Best MacOS for intel 10Gen processor

[tgilcas]

Hi everyone,
I still have my MacBook Pro 16,2 (13-inch, 2020, four Thunderbolt 3 ports) Intel Core i7-1068NG7 2.30GHz, 32GB RAM 3733 MHz LPDDR4. I had been updating to the latest macOS versions, but it reached a point where the laptop became extremely slow. Tahoe, in particular, was a really bad experience in terms of performance. So I decided to roll back to Ventura, and to my surprise, the speed improved a lot.

I wanted to hear what the community thinks:
Which macOS version is the best-optimized for Intel processors while still supporting most common apps? I’d really like to get the best performance out of this machine.

What are you all using?

 

[MBAir2010]

Monterey rocks on my M1,
as that is still an operating system designed solely for a computer, not iPad like Ventura forwards.

I use Mojave on a MBP 2012, MBA2010 which is getting iffy using Safari but everything else works great
if that works on you 2020, if not Catalina- Monterey are still safe reliable OS an should drive on your MacBook Pro 16,2.

 

[kitKAC]

Hi everyone,
I still have my MacBook Pro 16,2 (13-inch, 2020, four Thunderbolt 3 ports) Intel Core i7-1068NG7 2.30GHz, 32GB RAM 3733 MHz LPDDR4. I had been updating to the latest macOS versions, but it reached a point where the laptop became extremely slow. Tahoe, in particular, was a really bad experience in terms of performance. So I decided to roll back to Ventura, and to my surprise, the speed improved a lot.

I wanted to hear what the community thinks:
Which macOS version is the best-optimized for Intel processors while still supporting most common apps? I’d really like to get the best performance out of this machine.

What are you all using?

Sequoia works perfectly fine on my 2018 MBP, I had installed Tahoe on my work 2020 MBP and had thought it was a bit sluggish too. Sequoia had worked great on that too and it'll still get security updates for another year and a bit.

 

[DavidDoyle]

I've a 2019 Intel MBP and staying on Sequoia, 15.7.2

I'm always really concerned about MacOS/iOS releases that introduce huge UI overhead, and Tahoe is one of those.

I would not recommend staying on Ventura as it is now out of support as of September this year. So to receive security updates you need to be on a later version. I would suggest you upgrade to Sequoia and use that.

 

[bzgnyc2]

Monterey rocks on my M1,
as that is still an operating system designed solely for a computer, not iPad like Ventura forwards.

I use Mojave on a MBP 2012, MBA2010 which is getting iffy using Safari but everything else works great

Agree though I'd say calling Mojave's Safari "iffy" a bit too kind. I find it almost unusable on the modern web. Firefox 115 ESR, still being patched for security, also supports Mojave and is more compatible with newer sites.

Orion also supports Mojave and is updated/patched and also more compatible with modern sites. However, the current and recent versions of Orion glitch on Mojave in ways that it doesn't on Monterey, etc. Also no support for WebP under Mojave/Catalina which is also increasingly problematic on the modern web. The developer has promised to extend Orion back to High/Sierra and possibly backport the latest WebKit through to the same. It's still very usable on Mojave now but may work even better in the future.

Brave ran pretty good on Mojave but Chromium (and therefore Brave, etc) dropped support for it a few years ago.

In any case, I recommend running any of those over the Mojave's Safari.

if that works on you 2020, if not Catalina- Monterey are still safe reliable OS an should drive on your MacBook Pro 16,2.

Agreed, my tests measured Catalina-Monterey about the same as Mojave at most things once they settled (which seems to take 2 hours from boot with Monterey). In practice I find Mojave feels lighter on my Mac but not in a way that influences productivity.

 

[tgilcas]

I've a 2019 Intel MBP and staying on Sequoia, 15.7.2

I'm always really concerned about MacOS/iOS releases that introduce huge UI overhead, and Tahoe is one of those.

I would not recommend staying on Ventura as it is now out of support as of September this year. So to receive security updates you need to be on a later version. I would suggest you upgrade to Sequoia and use that.

I feel like those big design changes really hurt system performance, at least for Intel integrated graphics. I chose Ventura because it’s the closest to the newer systems and basically has all the modern features, like the new menu, updated icons, Calendar, Apple Mail, and I even feel like my battery life went back to normal.

I’ve read several people here saying they stayed on Monterey, and honestly I think that version was truly built 100% for Intel Macs. Ventura and later releases started adding Rosetta and other services meant for ARM. Still, I didn’t want to go too far back.

As for Sequoia, I’m not sure. I have my doubts. Some people say it runs fine for them, but I think that’s because they haven’t directly compared the performance with an earlier version.

I also feel like Apple, with this habit of releasing a brand-new OS every year, has created a crazy amount of fragmentation. So many systems become “obsolete” super quickly, while Windows has had 10 since 2014 and 11 since 2021. Meanwhile, Ventura from 2022 already is outdated on the Apple side.

On top of that, they stop sending security patches, which makes the system vulnerable. In less than three years they just drop support. It feels like extreme consumerism.

 

[MBAir2010]

Agree though I'd say calling Mojave's Safari "iffy" a bit too kind. I find it almost unusable on the modern web. Firefox 115 ESR, still being patched for security, also supports Mojave and is more compatible with newer sites.

Orion also supports Mojave and is updated/patched and also more compatible with modern sites. However, the current and recent versions of Orion glitch on Mojave in ways that it doesn't on Monterey, etc. Also no support for WebP under Mojave/Catalina which is also increasingly problematic on the modern web. The developer has promised to extend Orion back to High/Sierra and possibly backport the latest WebKit through to the same. It's still very usable on Mojave now but may work even better in the future.

Brave ran pretty good on Mojave but Chromium (and therefore Brave, etc) dropped support for it a few years ago.

In any case, I recommend running any of those over the Mojave's Safari.



Agreed, my tests measured Catalina-Monterey about the same as Mojave at most things once they settled (which seems to take 2 hours from boot with Monterey). In practice I find Mojave feels lighter on my Mac but not in a way that influences productivity.

thanks for the detailed reply, all this info make great sense!

since I have downtime on designing with CS4 im using my MBA 2020 a lot more often
as the early Intels are getting difficult to use "teh internets" by the year.