Newer macOS runs slower on Intel (undeniably) – on purpose or "accident"?

10 points by srevenant 8 hours ago | 10 comments

FIRST: if you feel the urge to say "get a PC" or "try linux" please don't. This is about apple/mac/macos hardware. suggestions to linux or other things isn't helpful.

I have a macbook pro, 32G ram, lightning fast nvme drive. There is NO REASON to upgrade the hardware.

I've followed the upgrade path to their latest (Tahoe) and they announced this is the last.

But it has become UNBEARABLY slow and painful for some operations. Most notably screen sharing drives it into the ground.

I've tried all sorts of things from os settings to whatever--short of redoing the heat paste on the CPU itself. I even installed Fedora on a generation before mine without the security chip (the first gen touch bar). Fedora was /lightning/ fast. (I even re-installed fresh from Tahoe, no difference).

It is undeniable: Apple has made the newer MacOS run slower on Intel.

I downgraded two steps to Sonoma. And it's back to running in a bearable manner.

I'm absolutely confident Apple will have all sorts of plausible deniability around "we didn't nerf it on purpose" but whether it was with intent or "oooops did that little thing happen?" doesn't matter.

Just for context: prior to upgrading my mac would average around 74°c. If I started zoom it would spike up to 100°c and then start throttling, making everything unusable. But it wasn't just zoom. Some other apps (especially those in the node world) also would be come dog slow over time.

Now that I'm on Sonoma, and what's so frustrating about this situation, is how blatant it is. I started a screenshare in zoom, there was a small spike to the temperature, then it trended DOWN even lower than when I started. Why? No idea. This is entirely circumstantial, but the real key here is that it didn't go UP.

What do I want? Maybe Apple just needs to stop trying to push people to an OS that is nerfed so they'll feel like buying new hardware.

And I'm curious what others think about the whole situation, or your own experiences.

Steps off soapbox.

(Context: MacBook Pro16, 2019, 32G ram, AMD gpu). And again: i've tried all sorts of setting changes from enabling gpu/disabling/etc. The heart of it is the windowing system runs everything dog slow.

TL;DR: if on intel stop at Sonoma, do not go past that.

RugZug 6 hours ago |

As long as you use proprietary OSes, do not ever update past what has come with the hardware(reinstall back to it if needed). That's why there are still machines using windows xp still in use today. That's where you will get the fastest/best experience.

If your mac came with Catalina(10.15.1), stay there and run that mf into the ground. Never shut it down(you don't know if it will start back up if you do) and never update. No, you don't need the latest version of the proprietary system. It's only getting worse as time goes by and you don't have any way to modify it to improve it.

> I have a macbook pro, 32G ram, lightning fast nvme drive. There is NO REASON to upgrade the hardware.

That is not what Apple wants to hear. They only want to hear the sound of the money. You either come to accept that, or you stop buying their products. It doesn't matter what you want or what you think, only what Apple wants.

As you said: with Fedora, it ran well and it probably isn't even as good as it could be unless optimized specifically for that hardware(Gentoo, or some BSD distro).

When the time comes and you need software that no longer has support for Catalina, then it's time to buy the newest mac that is "optimized" for the lastest version of the proprietary OS.

Otherwise, use the lastest version of the software that still works or try finding something else.

al_borland 5 hours ago |

In my experience, Intel Macs have always been that way. Every one I had was uncomfortably hot. My work Intel MBP’s fans would runs constantly, because everything would send its CPU through the roof. I always felt like I had to treat them with kid gloves to avoid the CPU running away on me. Webex meetings and screen sharing would always spike my CPU and make everything unusable. I’d have to stop sharing to actually do what I was trying to show someone. All this was before Apple Silicon even released, when Intel was the preferred chip. It was garbage.

This never happens anymore with the M1 Pro MBPs I have. I’ve never heard the fan spin up on my work MBP. I have heard it on my personal one, but I was actually pushing it, it wasn’t a random runaway process doing it, as was common on Intel.

I’d take a modern MacBook Air over the highest spec’d Intel Mac Apple ever made.

vsgherzi 8 hours ago |

Tahoe seems to have slowed down the OS a bit but I don't think it is as extreme as you're seeing here. I don't have any intel chips to test with myself but personally I'd try running some benchmarks both CPU and GPU to see if your scores match up with other people running your hardware. After that maybe check to see if you're throwing errors in your console. Maybe it'll lead to a hint.

It seems like a bad bug somewhere rather than a purposeful event

srevenant 8 hours ago | |

I'm confident it isn't purposeful. But no hardware errors can be found.

Virgin install Tahoe: grinds from 74-C up to 100-C within a minute and then throttles. Virgin install Sonoma: runs fine. No temperature change of note.

This isn't indicative of a hardware problem.

atmosx 6 hours ago |

I have installed Linux Mint with KDE on an iMac 2015, 16GB RAM. Runs great. The only thing that requires a convoluted script to run because <reasons> is bluetooth. Everything else worked out of the box, apparently.

jrsmith1279 8 hours ago |

I have (and still use) a 2019 mbp and it has had CPU thermal throttling issues since very early after I bought it new. Intel macs from that year were notorious for thermal throttling.

bigyabai 8 hours ago |

> There is NO REASON to upgrade the hardware.

> Just for context: prior to upgrading my mac would average around 74°c

If you refuse to use lighter-weight software, then yeah, it's time to upgrade your hardware. An average of 74°c means that you have ~20°c of headroom before hitting the Intel chip's junction temp and shutting off the hardware (or causing permanent damage). Your laptop should be idling much cooler even if it's one of those godawful Intel i9 16" models that runs hotter than Satan's jacuzzi.

Eventually MacOS will switch away from ACPI/UEFI power/temp management to use their custom devicetree drivers. Even the hacky Opencore workarounds won't fix the experience on your laptop, it will likely only be worse-supported from here on out. Backend architecture like libdispatch has probably already begun this process on Tahoe.

You've either got to downgrade macOS, get a new laptop or switch to an Intel-friendly OS. I'll leave the choice up to you.

srevenant 8 hours ago | |

The point being it works without temp problems in Sonoma. Not Tahoe.

This discrepancy indicates they've changed the software so it works worse.

bigyabai 8 hours ago | | |

> This discrepancy indicates they've changed the software so it works worse.

This is what I just said. Apple is switching to devicetree power management in libdispatch, which Intel chips do not support. Processes will eventually stop being efficient on Intel hardware and focus on ARM efficiency, and it's quite possible that this is already happening in Tahoe.

_wire_ 4 hours ago |

Look at Activity Monitor report when it's overloaded to see what's busy.

MacOS and apps have many kinds of background activity which present large transient loads, for example Spotlight indexing and photo library facial scanning.

Do you have a browser or other app infected with a crypto-miner or other malware?

If you create a new user and sign in using only that new user, do you see the same overload?

Are you running an unsupported Mac for Tahoe via OCLP? Thar be performance hazards. Search Macrumors "unsupported" forums.