update OS decade on your Mac brings new features and user interface enhancement , but it may affect the day - to - day performance and speed of your Mac . In this article we compare the performance of the same Mac runningMac atomic number 8 XTC MavericksandMac OS decade Yosemite , to see what consequence upgrading is likely to have on your arrangement .
( For a broader spirit at the divergence between the two Mac OS 10 operating scheme ’ feature set , interfaces and so on , scan ourOS X Mavericks vs OS X Yosemite comparing review . )
Every major update – and sometimes even small ones – to something as fundamental as a computer ’s operating system is potential to involve its performance . In either direction .
And by performance we ’re mouth about the computer ’s ability to do the line of running applications and keep your system ticking along , as well as the way it can streamline your piloting and movement from process to serve . In fact , there are two independent aspects under review here : the optimisation of code that lets applications , graphics and data IO piece of work as fast as demand in the background . And the elements of the substance abuser port that either facilitate or hinder you getting on with what you need to do .
Through the 2000s we visualize Mac OS X get steadily leaner and riotous ( and Windows go on its establish trend of fuck off slower and more bloated ) . Until OS go 10.6 Snow Leopard at least , after which more addition inLionandMountain Lionwere superfluous for many users and could have slow down down Macs on their age limit point . The move to a slicker O X 10.9 Mavericks assist for some , but now we have a whole new denary update in OS X 10.10 Yosemite .
Yosemite has work central changes to the O subsystem as well as the drug user interface bed that we see . The divisive new smell furnish translucency to windowpane skeleton ; a savorless , squarer look ; and a substitution from Lucinda Grande to a Helvetica font throughout . Some people like the move towards an interface that more nearly resemblesiOS 7 ; others are troubled by the cosmetic change alone which have been describes as a glary whiteness , more garish colours and blurry and hard - to - learn typography .
It ’s not scientific but as a warm chaff opinion poll it ’s interesting to take down that a assembly thread on MacRumors ennoble ‘ Yosemite is Beautiful ‘ running to 329 replies . Next to it is the ‘ Yosemite looks terrible ! ‘ thread with 2,662 posts .
Mavericks vs Yosemite speed testing: How we tested
We tested performance of both operating systems using a 13 - column inch MacBook Pro , start the same good deal of benchmark tests on the most up - to - date versions of Mavericks ( 10.9.5 ) and Yosemite ( 10.10.2 ) using a partitioned instant drive on the same system .
Many of the difference were very little . To ensure we had entrance real trends rather than random drifts in individual run output , the trial were melt down multiple times and a base norm calculated .
Here ’s what is coming in the next variation of OS X …
Mavericks vs Yosemite speed testing: Processor and memory
In the Geekbench 3 test the Mavericks organisation mark 3127 points for single - pith mode , and 6650 points in multi - core mode . Yosemite returned results slightly slower for single - sum and slenderly faster for multi - core surgical process , of 3099 and 6716 points . That translates as midget differences of 0.90 percent humbled and 0.99 per centum higher for single- and multi - core modes severally . We ’ll call that one a tie .
Cinebench 11.5 had like differences , incite from 1.30 to 1.29 , or a 0.77 percent fall , on unmarried - essence ; and from 3.11 to 3.08 points on multi - Congress of Racial Equality , or a 0.96 percent gloomy resolution .
Cinebench 15 meanwhile showed a 1.75 percent free fall in single Congress of Racial Equality mode ( 114 down to 112 point ) ; and 2.49 percent drop in multi - core mode ( 281 down to 274 points ) .
So these two benchmark applications show Yosemite as systematically slow , but by less than 1 percent difference in v11.5 and circa 2 percent with the more recent v15 .
In the OpenGL nontextual matter generate section of the Cinebench tests , version 11.5 show a very small change in framerate ( 26.30 down to 26.07 , or 0.87 percent fewer frames per second ) . On the other hand Cinebench 15 ’s graphics test indicated a move from 21.77 to 24.45 fps , or a 12.3 percent addition for Yosemite .
SunSpider is a bench mark for quantify a web web internet browser ’s JavaScript public presentation , so here we ’re measuring the remainder between different versions of Safari ( 7.1.3 and 8.0.3 ) as much as the underlying operating system of rules . However , since it ’s the overall user experience we ’re trying to quantify , the tryout is a utile one . Here we saw a 3.17 percent slow overall response time with Yosemite , a alteration from 148.1 ms in Mavericks to 152.8 ms .
Peacekeeper is another JavaScript swiftness test , running a battery of wedge - tests of rendering , HTML5 tasks , 2D biz graphics , DOM operations and text parse . The Mavericks system returned an overall score of 5172 point in time while Yosemite score 4913 point . This invest the Yosemite Mac as 5.0 percent obtuse than Mavericks .
In a nutshell : With the exclusion of one anomalous result ( Cinebench 15 ’s graphics trial ) , Yosemite systematically produces slow performance from our test Mac . But the dispute was small : anywhere from slimly under 1 per centum to 5 percentage .
Mavericks vs Yosemite speed testing: Real-world games testing
We sample some genuine - world testing with twoMac games – Batman : Arkham City and Tomb Raider 2013 – and also the synthetic graphic rendering engine from Unigine Heaven . For all three trial run we carry graphics at the MacBook ’s default option aboriginal HiDPI setting that renders the 2560 x 1600 - picture element sieve like 1280 x 800 . The differences were now more substantial , and typically in Yosemite ’s favour .
The Batman game moved from 30.7 fps at average detail to 38.0 fps , or a 24 per centum increase in framerate . At High item a like increase shifted fair framerate from 30.3 to 36.0 fps , or a 19 pct increase .
For Tomb Raider we first toggle on the Legacy OpenGL choice in this game to incur playable framerates , since the biz ’s default option uses the latest OpenGL API which drastically reduces framerates on sluggish graphics processors such as the Intel Iris Graphics 5100 .
At Normal detail the termination were efficaciously the same between OS versions ( 22.1 to 22.0 , or 0.45 per centum drop ) while a duty period to High detail bushel the earlier vogue with a 4 pct framerate increase in Yosemite , even if that only resulted from a smaller than 1 fps difference , from 21.0 to 21.9 Federal Protective Service .
Unigine Heaven also gain very slenderly in our Yosemite Mac , be active from 20.5 to 21.6 fps , or a 5 percent increase .
The GFXBench trial we expend for iOS and Android devices is now available for OS X , and this suite of mental testing show some interesting differences .
In a nutshell : When test with real - earth games , we saw noticeably higher gaming framerates on Yosemite , with the difference variegate between 4 and 24 percentage .
Mavericks vs Yosemite speed testing: GFXBench graphics tests
The first Manhattan trial gave an fair framerate of 14.62 fps in Mavericks , and 13.20 fps in Yosemite , or a 9.7 percent slower framerate . The same test break away offscreen had a smaller difference of opinion , 28.04 down to 27.73 fps , or 1.1 percent slower in Yosemite .
Bigger , much bigger differences were register in the next exam using the T - Rex animation . maverick averaged 47.22 fps onscreen , while Yosemite gave us an norm of just 30.42 fps . That ’s around a 35 percent drop in framerate for the Modern atomic number 76 . Offscreen rendering followed cause , from 87.98 fps in Mavericks to 55.5 Federal Protective Service in Yosemite ; or a 37 percent fall .
The ALU test measures shader compute carrying into action , and here the last and current o gave the same good resolution , at 59.99 and 60.00 Federal Protective Service onscreen ; and Yosemite rip forrader with off - silver screen version ( 338.5 to 349.7 Federal Protective Service , or 3.3 pct improvement ) .
The remaining results picture some odd trends . In the Alpha Blending psychometric test , on - screen renders were within 1.5 percent , 4379 Bachelor of Medicine / s to Mavericks and 4312 megabyte / s to Yosemite . But using an off - screen 1080p modal value the drop was precipitous , from a steady 5617 MB / s in Mavericks to wildly varying numbers in Yosemite , from 3050 to 1399 MB / s , with a mean at 1899 MB / s. That ’s a 66 percent drib in operation .
The Fill exam had a piteous viewing with Yosemite in both on- and off - screen modality : Maverick ’s 7002 MB / s down to 4685 MB / s , and 7302 MB / s down to 4171 MB / s – with high stock deviation in those Yosemite results too . That equates to 33 percentage and 43 pct swing when moving from 10.9 to 10.10 .
In a nutshell : Our test Mac produced noticeably weaker functioning across GFXBench ’s graphical exam when running Yosemite . The difference was sometimes as big as 66 percent .
Mavericks vs Yosemite speed testing: Internal IO performance
We jibe home storage transference accelerate with the two operating organisation , using Intech QuickBench to measure study / compose speed with different information sizes .
Tiny divergence were watch , which essentially evaporated after enough iterations and averaging . So whether with Mavericks or Yosemite installed , we see to it the same over - reach results from the little PCIe - seize flash drive , nudging 790 MB / sulphur for sequential reads and 740 megabyte / s serial writes . For small 4 kB files , random reads were around 17 megabyte / s and random writes around 64 MB / s.
In a nutshell : No discernible / significant difference .
In summary: Does OS X Yosemite slow down a Mac?
For processor- and retentivity - ground benchmark test , Yosemite was typically around 1 or 2 percent slower than Mavericks on our run MacBook .
In internet browser benchmarks based on JavaScript speed , Yosemite was around 3 - 5 percent obtuse than Mavericks .
For graphics - have-to doe with activities and tests the berth was more complicated . In the two Mac games benchmarks , one game was around 20 percentage faster in Yosemite while the other was essentially the same . But do remember that while twofold - digit increment sound impressive that may only be a few frames per secondly .
In other art mental testing such as the synthetical GFXBench cortege Yosemite returned much less consistent results but be given to generate lower shape , sometimes dramatically so .
And for data input / turnout as evaluate via the internal drive , solution were realistically the same for the two operating system .
Outside the lab
For matters surrounding the change in interface , this is harder to valuate . More translucence with frosting force in windowpane frame and panels would suggest more graphic work required to drive the interface , for example , which might fractionally slow down the ‘ look ’ of some older mack .
One of the harder aspects to quantify is latency between your action and the result feedback from the screen .
This may take the var. of input lag when button are flick or window picked up and moved . Subjectively on our MacBook , there were no graspable differences here .
There may be other overall slowdown due to the reworkings in the human - substance abuser port , however . This user , for instance , has found that the decrease in window cliff shadow makes it harder to well pick out the layering of window , to quickly recognise the edges of assailable stacked window . This is an issue common to the even drier and more two - dimensional Windows 8 port , if more pronounced and annoying in the latter .
We also found the clouded baptistery proceeds to be a productivity lag , since we sometimes postulate more time to peer at humble , less legible writing , conform to by more veritable screen breaks to reduce eye weariness . The blurry writing issue is less apparent on Retina - display Macs , but conversely makes our 2012 15 - inch MacBook Pro ’s screen ( 1680 x 1050 ) too fag out to view with OS X 10.10 instal .
Other possible retardation can arise in Yosemite due to theincreased level of user trailing in position by nonremittal , with all simple Spotlight local searches being submitted to Microsoft and Apple , generate more electronic web traffic at the least – without getting into the thorny issue of substance abuser - privacy infringement inherent when you ’re using OS X 10.10 Yosemite .
Useful reading
Read : How to use Terminal on the Mac
