macOS Sequoia is crazy fast?

[WalsallSaddler]

On my M1 Air i have better scores on Sequoia 15.0, here results:
1. Geekbench Metal:
Sequoia 31 960
Sonoma 31 000
On Ventura/Monterey about 30 000

2. Geekbench OpenCL:
Sequoia 19 630
Sonoma 18 900
On Ventura/Monterey about 18 000

3. Geekbench CPU:
Sequoia 2 390 single, 8 850 multi
Sonoma 2 380 single, 8 720 multi
On Ventura/Monterey about 2 310 single, 8 330 multi

4. Speedometer 3.0 (Safari)
Sequoia 32.0
Sonoma 20.4

5. Basemark (Safari)
Sequoia 1 523
Sonoma 1 077

6. On Cinebench 2024 and Unigine Heaven I don’t notice any difference — maybe because of throttling.

Are you seen the same on you machines?

 

[shadowboi]

How is the general performance? I am still unsure if I should update my M1 too. I have 16gb RAM model if that matters. Also, is battery life the same or did you have some issues?

 

[WalsallSaddler]

How is the general performance? I am still unsure if I should update my M1 too. I have 16gb RAM model if that matters. Also, is battery life the same or did you have some issues?

I have 8/256 Air M1. General perfomance about the same, but Safari definetly seems much faster (but I’m on Firefox). Also maybe animation switching desktops smoother. Temps, ram usage about the same. Battery maybe slightly worse, but not sure, don’t test it.

 

[shadowboi]

I have 8/256 Air M1. General perfomance about the same, but Safari definetly seems much faster (but I’m on Firefox). Also maybe animation switching desktops smoother. Temps, ram usage about the same. Battery maybe slightly worse, but not sure, don’t test it.

Thank you! Will probably think about giving it a try, I know I can downgrade any moment but don’t wanna start with fresh installs every time

 

[David1986H]

Here are my scores, Sonoma vs Sequoia on my 16" M3 Max. Improvement across the board.

Sequoia scores are the Bottom half of each picture of corse.

 

[GuilleA]

How is the general performance? I am still unsure if I should update my M1 too. I have 16gb RAM model if that matters. Also, is battery life the same or did you have some issues?

I've the same MBA, but waiting for the 15.1 to update. I never update macOS on day one. Hell, I skipped Sonoma altogether and will upgrade straight from Ventura.

 

[WalsallSaddler]

I've the same MBA, but waiting for the 15.1 to update. I never update macOS on day one. Hell, I skipped Sonoma altogether and will upgrade straight from Ventura.

Same. My main system Sonoma, installing Sequoia as the second system.

 

[dmr727]

Huh - interesting thread. I usually wait for an update or two before taking the plunge, but you guys are making me curious (I have a 16GB/1TB M1 MBA).

 

[twanj]

Not a noticeable difference, as far as I can tell.

 

[ewitte]

Haven't tested long enough but I had an issue where half the screen would turn green then reboot (infrequently). Tried to reset but didn't erase everything yet. This hasn't happened since the update, but I've only used it once (I only use it 1-2 times a week). M2 Max Studio.

 

[WalsallSaddler]

Make quick battery test. 30 min video 1080p/60FPS. Screen brightness, volume, browser version and video all the same:
Sequoia 15.0: start from 30% of battery, drop to 26%.
Sonoma 14.6.1: start from 30% of battery, drop to 26%.

So in this test it’s the same battery life on both systems.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Benchmark tests are meaningless. Real- life day to day usage is a better metric to report.

 

[Ben J.]

Haven't tested long enough but I had an issue where half the screen would turn green then reboot (infrequently). Tried to reset but didn't erase everything yet. This hasn't happened since the update, but I've only used it once (I only use it 1-2 times a week). M2 Max Studio.

Sounds familiar. I had hard crashes like this, kernel panics, with several ARM macs, M1, M2. Never found a solution, and Apple has never acknowledged it. But it's seen by many. Many threads about it:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/m1-mac-socd-report-detected-ap-watchdog-expired.2304694/

Typical is that it happens when streaming video; a second of green or pink patterns on the screen, automatic reboot, and you might get an error about

Mac SOCD report detected: (AP watchdog expired)​

I think it has to do with the GPU on the "system-on-a-chip" on M-macs. Some deep design flaw. Haven't seen it since I got the M2 Pro. Fingers crossed.

 

[thebart]

I don't think you can see any difference with a tiny bump in geek score, but Safari looks like a substantial improvement. Unfortunately I don't use Safari, except for Netflix where it's the only way to get 4k

 

[tranceking26]

I wouldn't say crazy fast but at least in my case, Safari seems to be the same as Sonoma was.

 

[WalsallSaddler]

Sounds familiar. I had hard crashes like this, kernel panics, with several ARM macs, M1, M2. Never found a solution, and Apple has never acknowledged it. But it's seen by many. Many threads about it:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/m1-mac-socd-report-detected-ap-watchdog-expired.2304694/

Typical is that it happens when streaming video; a second of green or pink patterns on the screen, automatic reboot, and you might get an error about

Mac SOCD report detected: (AP watchdog expired)​

I think it has to do with the GPU on the "system-on-a-chip" on M-macs. Some deep design flaw. Haven't seen it since I got the M2 Pro. Fingers crossed.

Most likely if updating Safari on older MacOS it would run the same — version MacOS doesn’t matter.

 

[Ben J.]

Most likely if updating Safari on older MacOS it would run the same — version MacOS doesn’t matter.

???
I never use Safari, I use Firefox.

 

[philpalmiero]

Thank you! Will probably think about giving it a try, I know I can downgrade any moment but don’t wanna start with fresh installs every time

How do you downgrade?

 

[Droid13]

I've the same MBA, but waiting for the 15.1 to update. I never update macOS on day one. Hell, I skipped Sonoma altogether and will upgrade straight from Ventura.

Meanwhile this is the first year I break a similar habit and the first year I run into problems. Not unusual for me to hold off until the .4 update...

 

[Ben J.]

How do you downgrade?

It's been described here on the forum many times by me and others. you'll have to search. I can't describe the procedure everytime someone asks.

 

[shadowboi]

How do you downgrade?

Never tried it yet but I think it is still possible on newer macOS versions. There was Terminal command back in the days so when you download an app “Install macOS” you can put this command to make USB installer. Then when booting mac hold “alt/option” key and just install as usual, all the data will be wiped so it requires data backup

 

[Ben J.]

Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

Use an external drive or secondary volume as a startup disk from which to install macOS.

support.apple.com