4 ms·

I'm always a little cautious about "tried it in the store" experience. If I nuke and rebuild my machine (either Linux, or Windows), it's always significantly f

by Twirrim 1mo ago

I'm always a little cautious about "tried it in the store" experience. If I nuke and rebuild my machine (either Linux, or Windows), it's always significantly faster than it was before. Over time stuff just tends to accumulate that you don't notice. Like the old days of needing to defrag hard disks.

alluro2 1mo ago
Yeah, same - I tried the M5 Pro randomly while waiting for my daughter to finish salivating over a Neo, and just got surprised by how quickly it opened apps and reacted to anything I did - ~1-1.5 seconds for Affinity Designer was amazing. My MBP probably got affected by OS updates like other people are saying - opening apps and responsiveness definitely got worse, and felt like slightly deteriorating over time (but it might have been MacOS updates along the way).
snazz 1mo ago
I agree with you that this is a noticeable effect, but I have a hard time figuring out why it is, especially on Macs with the sealed system volume (which should make the operating system files bit-for-bit identical between a freshly set up Mac and one you've been using for years). Certainly it could come from the accumulation of cruft in /Library and ~/Library, but you can clean that up too.
- alasdair_ 1mo ago
  One reason is the ssd. A heavily used ssd is just slower than a new one.
  - thewebguyd 1mo ago
    Thermal performance degrades too. Paste breaks down over 2 to 5 years, you'll thermal throttle more often and more quickly than when new after a few years. Phase change thermal pads help with this, extending that timeline out beyond 5+ years but still will eventually degrade. There's all kinds of other hardware things we don't usually think about that can start having an actual performance impact after ~3-5 years too. Battery, obviously, as it degrades can limit your peak wattage, the power delivery capacitors lose capacitance over the years and develop more resistance impacting maximum clock states, fan bearings wear out, you get vacuum leaks in copper heat pipes, and micro-fissures in soldering. Granted, most of it is going to be software but its easy to forget that hardware degrades, and degrades relatively quickly especially in higher power systems. This is why repairability and user serviceability is so important. If you can't open up and swap parts in your machine easily, a $10 consumable turns it into $2,000+ ewaste.

by Twirrim 1mo ago

alluro2 1mo ago

Yeah, same - I tried the M5 Pro randomly while waiting for my daughter to finish salivating over a Neo, and just got surprised by how quickly it opened apps and reacted to anything I did - ~1-1.5 seconds for Affinity Designer was amazing. My MBP probably got affected by OS updates like other people are saying - opening apps and responsiveness definitely got worse, and felt like slightly deteriorating over time (but it might have been MacOS updates along the way).

snazz 1mo ago

I agree with you that this is a noticeable effect, but I have a hard time figuring out why it is, especially on Macs with the sealed system volume (which should make the operating system files bit-for-bit identical between a freshly set up Mac and one you've been using for years). Certainly it could come from the accumulation of cruft in /Library and ~/Library, but you can clean that up too.

alasdair_ 1mo ago
One reason is the ssd. A heavily used ssd is just slower than a new one.
- thewebguyd 1mo ago
  Thermal performance degrades too. Paste breaks down over 2 to 5 years, you'll thermal throttle more often and more quickly than when new after a few years. Phase change thermal pads help with this, extending that timeline out beyond 5+ years but still will eventually degrade. There's all kinds of other hardware things we don't usually think about that can start having an actual performance impact after ~3-5 years too. Battery, obviously, as it degrades can limit your peak wattage, the power delivery capacitors lose capacitance over the years and develop more resistance impacting maximum clock states, fan bearings wear out, you get vacuum leaks in copper heat pipes, and micro-fissures in soldering. Granted, most of it is going to be software but its easy to forget that hardware degrades, and degrades relatively quickly especially in higher power systems. This is why repairability and user serviceability is so important. If you can't open up and swap parts in your machine easily, a $10 consumable turns it into $2,000+ ewaste.