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Best OS for Macbook Pro M1 Max 32GB

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lostregr123

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 1, 2019
38
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I dont really care for the new features of the new os.
But I always had in my mind that new OS slow down my machine without to offering something new?

What the best os for this macbook?
In my mind is Monterey.

I mostly use my machine as an everyday go.
But I also I am a graphic designer using Photoshop and Illustrator.

Half of the day the macbook is hoocked on usb c Dell3219Q
And the half other of day youtube/netflix on the bedside.

Whats your preference or experience with the new OS?
 
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Please don't overcomplicate things and always upgrade to the latest OS, while you can. You don't have do to it instantly, but ideally within 4-6 weeks of it coming out.
M1 Max won't feel any performance difference if you keep doing these upgrades for at least 5 more years.
Past Mac OSs receive security updates later than the current one. Also, past OSs have bugs which apple will never fix, as the focus is always on the latest Mac OS.

Being secure is always more important than a chance (very low in your case) of lower performance.

I also wish there were a stable Mac OS with a locked-down feature list that would receive only security updates. Users, who don't need new features, and who are tired of updating the OS, would've been able use such Mac OS forever, but, unfortunately, it's a fantasy.
 
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Currently using Ventura and it's great. I always update one OS behind the current (mainly for 3rd party apps that take a while to catch up). Think you should be fine using the latest OS. I haven't noticed any difference updating from the original OS it shipped with in terms of performance. The M series chips took a huge step forward so I don't foresee it being a problem in the way that it was with Intel based machines.
 
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Some of us have installed Sonoma on 2012 MacbookPros with Intel i 5 or i7 processors. IMHO in my case, the best compromise for my mbps, is the MontereyOS. In your case, with a sooooo more powerfull M1 processor than the old Intel ones, and your high RAM, without any doubts, SonomaOS on the latest version.
 
Furka said:
Some of us have installed Sonoma on 2012 MacbookPros with Intel i 5 or i7 processors. IMHO in my case, the best compromise for my mbps, is the MontereyOS. In your case, with a sooooo more powerfull M1 processor than the old Intel ones, and your high RAM, without any doubts, SonomaOS on the latest version.
Click to expand...

Ι have installed Ventura on Macbook Pro 2019 i7 16" and the machine was lagging at basic things.
I dont get how people with older machines say that its ok...
 
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lostregr123 said:
Ι have installed Ventura on Macbook Pro 2019 i7 16" and the machine was lagging at basic things.
I dont get how people with older machines say that its ok...
Click to expand...
You are right. I play with OCLP por test purposes (I have plans to buy a M1/M2 newer machine and before that I can test the newer OSes). I have installed BigSurOS, MontereyOS, VenturaOS and SonomaOS on it. After some tests with 16Gb of Ram and a Crucial SSD (not the speediest of the world) and Sonoma was not lagging at all, BUT it runs some more background daemons than his last upgradable macos CatalinaOS, and the use of cpu is higher, and it runs hotter. I think the best compromise for this machine is MontereyOS, that has the last security updates, and more software with the last updates on the app store etc., but at the moment I am on CatalinaOS.
 
It doesn't matter as proved by this video:

The only thing is Sonoma is not in bug fix mode, so it uses more ram rn, however I guarantee if this video was tested on the initial version of each operating system, it would show that they were the exact same.

So my answer now is Ventura, until possibly macOS 14.5 or 14.6
 
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lostregr123 said:
I dont really care for the new features of the new os.
But I always had in my mind that new OS slow down my machine without to offering something new?

What the best os for this macbook?
In my mind is Monterey.

I mostly use my machine as an everyday go.
But I also I am a graphic designer using Photoshop and Illustrator.

Half of the day the macbook is hoocked on usb c Dell3219Q
And the half other of day youtube/netflix on the bedside.

Whats your preference or experience with the new OS?
Click to expand...
Monterey +1 👌
 
I have the exact same machine. I stayed on Monterey for a month or two after Sonoma came out because I couldn't afford to troubleshoot issues while in school. During break I upgraded both my MacBook and M1 Mac mini. The speed is the same. I noticed no slowdowns after upgrading. These machines are still so new and powerful I don't think you need to worry about them slowing down for some time.
 
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If you prefer stability over new features, get one version behind, which is Ventura. It’s still have security update without any hiccups and compatibility issues from Sonoma.

Bear in mind, new OS version always slower than the old one, it’s only a matter of whether the slowdown is negligible or not (which depends on machine’s spec). I have 15” M2 MBA (Ventura) and 13” M2 (Monterey), both have same RAM/CPU. The Ventura (with better GPU) is slightly slower than Monterey (in everyday tasks) but it’s still very much tolerable.
 
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I don’t know if Appe signs macOS similar to how they sign iOS to prevent downgrade. You may need to check if downgrade is even possible on Apple silicon Mac. If downgrade is not possible, then all you can do is never upgrade past sonoma.
 
Shirasaki said:
I don’t know if Appe signs macOS similar to how they sign iOS to prevent downgrade. You may need to check if downgrade is even possible on Apple silicon Mac. If downgrade is not possible, then all you can do is never upgrade past sonoma.
Click to expand...
They don’t. The only limitation is that you generally cannot install an OS version older than the one that came on the machine from the factory.
 
My M1 MacBook Air was on Monterey and I wouldn't use Ventura because of all the bad reports I'd seen. Sonoma seems much better and will be the best for a while. At this point, it seemed that Ventura was terribly broken, while Sonoma is merely buggy.
 
I'm not sure why you expect there to be speed issues on such a high-performance and relatively new device. As others have mentioned you're overcomplicating things without any need to.

I'm running macOS Sonoma on a base MacBook Pro M1 Pro and it's blazing fast.
 
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