what does or does not speed up a Mac

[MCAsan]

There are often threads related to new Mac purchases where folks want to know is it worth it to get a faster CPU, quad-core vs dual-core CPU, heavy duty GPU, SSD vs old spinning platters.....etc.

This article may give some insight. So much depends on what apps you are running...or want to run.

http://www.macworld.com/article/209...es-and-doesnt-actually-speed-up-your-mac.html

 

[maflynn]

Of course the major variable is how you use the laptop.

While you can easily pick some low hanging fruit, i.e., SSD is will always give you a boot in performance if you currently have a hard drive.

Usage will dictate if ram, cores and GPU will have an impact.

 

[Meister]

The ssd performance difference in this test is based on sata.
There is only a relevant difference between the 128gb pcie ssds write speed and the other sizes.
512gb , 756gb and 1tb perform about the same.

 

[yjchua95]

The ssd performance difference in this test is based on sata.
There is only a relevant difference between the 128gb pcie ssds write speed and the other sizes.
512gb , 756gb and 1tb perform about the same.

Note that in Macs, the SanDisk PCIe SSDs perform around 150MB/s slower than Samsung ones in writes.

 

[Marty62]

Two words ... Hard Drive

Ancient tech with spinning discs and arms with read heads moving around.

That's your main bottleneck in any system IMHO.

Get an SSD, I have a Samsung 840 EVO 750gb in my MBP and it has made
such a HUGE difference to overall performance, boot up/launching programs
installs moving data etc etc.

After that perhaps just have enough RAM, 8gb minimum as a rule of thumb.

M.

 

[simon48]

The ssd performance difference in this test is based on sata.
There is only a relevant difference between the 128gb pcie ssds write speed and the other sizes.
512gb , 756gb and 1tb perform about the same.

Not true. The SSDs all get faster as they get bigger.

 

[Meister]

Not true. The SSDs all get faster as they get bigger.

Do you have a source for this?

 

[simon48]

Do you have a source for this?

It's a well known fact, you can find them all over the place, here's a few.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1659887/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1668336/

The 1TB is especially fast, I've seen mine get over 900MB/s.

 

[Meister]

It's a well known fact, you can find them all over the place, here's a few.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1659887/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1668336/

The 1TB is especially fast, I've seen mine get over 900MB/s.

Thank you. Seems like there is barely a difference between 256 and 512 though. 1tb is wow with 15" quad though my 256gb is 680/write and 730/read. Samsung drive.

 

[yjchua95]

Thank you. Seems like there is barely a difference between 256 and 512 though. 1tb is wow with 15" quad though my 256gb is 680/write and 730/read. Samsung drive.

The 1TB drives use a 4-lane PCIe channel, while all other capacities use 2-lane PCIe channels. That's why the 1TB drives are faster.