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Catalina or Big Sur for MacBook Pro Late 2013?

S

stark4

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 14, 2008
391
1
Florida
I have MacBook Pro late 2013 with Mojave. I'm just wondering which OS I should upgrade to? I saw posts about Big Sur max cpu usage with safari. Not sure it is still the case with late 2013 Macbook Pros. So Is it better to upgrade to Big Sur or Catalina?

Thanks in advance.
 
Catalina might run slightly better, but I think that you will appreciate the big changes made in Big Sur. I have several older iMacs and saw no cpu troubles, I would upgrade to Big Sur.
 
For me, on a mid-2014 MacBook Pro, I found that Big Sur was running better and more stable. The Catalina seemed less stable as I was experiencing Catalina Crash panic and perhaps other flakiness that I do not recall at the moment. My experience may be related more to my particular confutation with USB bridge and external disks, but FYI.
 
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I do not have the machine that OP asked about specifically, but every machine I have from 2012-2020 that can run Catalina has run Big Sur better. More stable, better performance, and IMO has better UI.
 
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I have the same machine as OP, running Big Sur since mid 2018 with no problems - it has been very stable & would definitely recommend.
 

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If you want a newer operating system, I'd go with Big Sur. My 2015 MacBook Pro was on Mojave and I tried Monterey and went back to Mojave. Mojave is more stable than Big Sur and Monterey but there is software which requires Big Sur or Monterey that I use so I need to have at least one system on the newer versions of macOS.
 
pshufd said:
If you want a newer operating system, I'd go with Big Sur. My 2015 MacBook Pro was on Mojave and I tried Monterey and went back to Mojave. Mojave is more stable than Big Sur and Monterey but there is software which requires Big Sur or Monterey that I use so I need to have at least one system on the newer versions of macOS.
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I've been experimenting with the last four OSes, the older they get, the more stable they are. Monterey (before 15.4) is unusable. Big Sur was flaky. Mojave is rock solid. I just installed Catalina because the latest Premiere Pro doesn't support Mojave. Let's see how it goes.
 
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My 2 cents probably doesn't mean much as I just got my MacBook Air that was suppose to come with Catalina but they shipped it with Big Sur and I could not be happier, I wasn't sure about having it on an Intel Mac thats why I bought it as Catalina but if it is supported why not there are a lot of the latest apps I want to run, and I'll have support for a far longer time with Big Sur, this makes my Mac better than my PC it can't even run the latest software. I feel like I won the lottery with Big Sur being in the supported chain for as long as possible is never a bad thing.

Of course I have never tried Mojave, or anything other then Classic, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, El Capitan, and now Big Sur, but I like being near to the top of MacOS it's like Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro I am almost there, lol. Is it worth it or not to each his own.

I haven't ever had any instability Issues Under MacOS so far none that I have ran anyway you want instability just boot up a PC with the Unnamed OS. It has a 7 8 10 and 11 something like that. So I would go with Big Sur if I could even if I'm practically forced to which I am but I'm fine with it. It Beats Catalina.
 
I believe that Big Sur is considered more stable than Catalina, and that agrees with what I recall from my experience with updating mid-2014 MacBook Pro over the years.
 
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I'm running Big Sur on my late 2013 rMBP. There were some issues with EFI in the early days but that was fixed a little while ago. Runs fine.

Here is a link to the thread I started; no one else replied to it but at least you can see the results I was getting.
 
decided to update mine to big sur today. the software update indicates big sur however, when I click "more info", it leads to a site containing ventura. is big sur no longer available or just a site redirection issue?
 
stark4 said:
I have MacBook Pro late 2013 with Mojave. I'm just wondering which OS I should upgrade to? I saw posts about Big Sur max cpu usage with safari. Not sure it is still the case with late 2013 Macbook Pros. So Is it better to upgrade to Big Sur or Catalina?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
I have a mid 2012 A1278 and run an opencore patched Big Sur 11.7.1 and love it, saw no performance issues. I run 16gb ram and a 500gb ssd so that may help. am really planing on going to Monterey now that they have issues worked out.
 
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