Is High Sierra - much - slower?

Question

Is High Sierra - much - slower?

Is High Sierra much slower?

I'd just installed a GTX 980 Ti (had been using a R280x)

So ... I ran Geekbench to see if I'd picked up any over-all speed.

I was totally shocked to see that my machine was running much slower.

Then I realized I'd also updated the OS a few days ago ...

The Multi-Core memory performance is almost Half of what it was !!!

It has to be the OS ... right? Because the new video card is almost three times faster ...

Mac Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13.2), 20TB-StripeRaid - 64GB - GTX 980 Ti

Posted on Dec 13, 2017 9:45 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 13, 2017 1:07 PM in response to Michael_North

A couple of observations.

Each new release of OS X/macOS adds new feature processes to support stuff we don't necessarily need added to the operating system.
macOS High Sierra is likely optimized for SSD storage

With respect to item 1, I have a Safari 11.0.2 opened with a single page on this site, and a Terminal window with top running. This is a 2011 Mac mini running 10.11.6 with all security updates, and top reports 218 process in total.

To my right, I have a 2014 MacBook Air running High Sierra 10.13.2, with only a Terminal window running with top. Total reported processes is 268, but a moment ago it was 289.

This is a 32.6% process increase from 10.11.6 to 10.13.2. Not entirely scientific, but hard to dismiss in performance impact. Both machines are using an SSD for boot device.

You can search for Error in the Console search box, and provided that you have selected the system.log entry in the left panel, the most recent data is at the bottom of the display.

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Answer 2

Dec 13, 2017 10:11 AM in response to Michael_North

Is this a current release of Geekbench?

Are your Nvidia drivers those released in September for 10.13.0, or has Nvidia kept these updated for each of 10.13.1, and 10.13.2 macOS updates? In the Activity Monitor, what appears to be consistently consuming the CPU, or RAM besides the kernel? Is there a storm of error messages in your Console log?

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Answer 3

Dec 13, 2017 11:50 AM in response to VikingOSX

Thanks for your reply

1) I'm using the latest driver (see screen shot)

2) The Activity Monitor is Not showing anything odd (see screen shot)

3) The Console is a little beyond my experience

there is So Much going on ... but errors relating to ram "seem" non-existent.

Is there a filter I can use to narrow down what it's reporting?

I did a search for the word error and there Were Not any "memory errors"

that I could tell ...

Also:

I put the old R9-280x card back in and ran the Geekbench test again.

I got the same lower numbers I got with the 980Ti ...

I suppose I could try and install 10.11 on another drive

then boot from it and test the speed ...

Thanks for your input

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Answer 4

Dec 17, 2017 5:14 PM in response to VikingOSX

Well ... it Not High Sierra ... at least not in-and-of itself.

I put a fresh copy of 10.11 on a new SSD

and started the machine with it.

I got the same bad-numbers for Multi-Core Memory performance ...

It's just Too big a number drop ( 4386 down to 2169 )

to be just a few more threads running in the background.

The only thing left, is that there was one of those low level

(wait for the tone) tweaks from Apple; before it would let me update to 10.13.2

I thought it was a BIOS tweak but the bios numbers are the still the same.

Plus I'd hate to thing that Apple would deliberately slow down any machine.

This is a Early 2009 4,1 that's been updated to 5,1 with 12 core X5690 @ 3.46 GHz

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Answer 5

Dec 13, 2017 12:06 PM in response to Michael_North

... forgot to include these in my reply ... sorry

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