I know it’s going to be released to the general public on Thursday but just wondering how Big Sur is running on older macs for all of you out their that have been Beta testing it. My MacBook is a late 2013 MacBook Pro 13 inch. So my Mac is the oldest MacBook Pro supported. Just kind of curious how it is running on older macs.
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MacOS Big Sur Performance
- Thread starter Jerhen
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I am running it on a Late 2012 Mac Mini 2.3 GHz Quad-Core i7 with 16GB RAM and it runs almost exactly the same as Catalina. If you are happy with how Catalina runs you will probably be happy with Big Sur ...
Thanks for the reply. Is there any frame rate slowness like if you minimize an app. Like frame rate drops/laggy ness.
Unibody MBP Mid-2012 (yes, I know is not supported), 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, now running RC2 20B28.
Definitely it is a lot faster than Catalina (once its initial reindexing/cache loading has completed). No frame rate drops on app minimizing/restoring or desktop switching. Very happy with everything so far. I have grown to like Big Sur a lot over the past months.
Only issues I had were from apps that didn't support Big Sur, but the updates have been coming steadily and there are very few now.
Definitely it is a lot faster than Catalina (once its initial reindexing/cache loading has completed). No frame rate drops on app minimizing/restoring or desktop switching. Very happy with everything so far. I have grown to like Big Sur a lot over the past months.
Only issues I had were from apps that didn't support Big Sur, but the updates have been coming steadily and there are very few now.
For me, exactly the same as with Catalina. Steam games that work with Catalina like CupHead also seem to run just as well. Minimizing, maximizing, scrolling, etc. are just as responsive on Chrome, Safari, Word, etc.
I honestly think the main differences for Big Sur are the slight UI changes and ARM support (which doesn't matter to anyone with an Intel cpu) - it is worth the upgrade to stay current, but honestly it feels almost exactly the same in daily use.
I didn't see your post before making my own threat but I've had UI lag/stutter on a 2016 13in pro i5, 2017 15in pro i7/amd and a 2015 air i7. All have 8gb or more RAM. It not HUGE but its noticeable, and worse on the 2015 Air. I notice it much more on the 15in pro when using a 2nd display.
All these same machines are perfectly fine under 10.15.7
All these same machines are perfectly fine under 10.15.7
That is so weird. I’ve heard conflicting things that Im still unsure if I want to upgrade my late 2013 MacBook Pro to Big Sur yet. Hope to hear more comments from others.
You may want to create a separate Big Sur volume, install to that, and see if it looks good to you before converting your Catalina volume ...
Big Sur was really great for a lot of betas. Then, the performance seems to have taken a little hit especially since the last 3 betas on MacBook Air 2017. I hope this is fixed in the coming weeks.
I noticed Android betas do that too. I'll absolutely love its speed, performance, battery.. then 1-2 release before final and Final feel like a big step back.
I know this is an older thread, but I have actually found the upgrade to Big Sur on my Late 2013 rMBP to be awesome. Overall my rMacBook Pro runs cooler, fans don't kick in nearly as often (hardly at all for day to day use). No performance issues on my end. Under Catalina the MBP would run hot, fans would ramp up such for daily use (connected to a 4k display via TB2 (Mini-DP) > HDMI adapter. I'm actually very impressed with how well this thing runs and seems to be just as good on a day-to-day basis as it was new, if not a bit quieter/cooler.
Under BootCamp though, fans still sound like it's going to take off and break the sound barrier.
