• The SSDs on the M1 Pro (13-inch) are the fastest of them all, with BlackMagic Disk Speed Test read rates of 2,824.9 MBps, beating the 2,692 MBps from the M1 Air and the 16-inch Pro's 2,540 MBps speed.
• Welcome to the Geekbench Mac Benchmark Chart. The data on this chart is calculated from Geekbench 5 results users have uploaded to the Geekbench Browser.To make sure the results accurately reflect the average performance of each Mac, the chart only includes Macs with at least five unique results in the Geekbench Browser.

Make your Mac invincible

At the end of the day, the iPad Pro 2020 is the closest the iPad has ever gotten to a Macbook without the pro-grade apps. It's a great option for creatives that will use the Apple Pencil and for casual users, but for college students and professionals, the Macbooks seem like the better option. Read our Apple MacBook Pro (16 -inch, 2019) review. $2,149 at Amazon. $2,399 at Apple. $2,150 at Best Buy. Best Surface laptop. Extra speed for photo and video editing and casual gaming.

When you think about getting a new computer today, almost without a doubt your eyes are set on a Mac. Apple’s desktops and laptops (and tablets and phones) have always been good, but also have reached new heights lately, with the inclusion of gorgeous Retina screens and blazing-fast Intel Core i9 processors.

So when it comes to buying a new Apple machine, you have a tough choice to make: should it be an iMac or MacBook Pro? Even though both of them differ wildly on price, power, design, and intended use cases, it’s not immediately obvious which one you need more. Luckily, this guide offers a step-by-step breakdown for you to make the right decision.

Best app for enhancing new Mac

Whatever Mac you choose, CleanMyMac X will keep it in awesome shape from day one. Download the app via Setapp in one click.

When To Choose MacBook Pro or iMac

Let’s start by saying that there are no losers in the MacBook Pro vs iMac standoff. They are both capable machines and you likely wouldn’t regret choosing either one. But some differences still remain and are worthy of a closer look.

Naturally, the first thing you might notice is that iMac vs MacBook Pro is essentially primarily a desktop vs laptop question. But also much more than that. You could easily get some portability when you buy iMac if you also get an iPad. Alternatively, some screen real estate is an easy upgrade for a MacBook Pro if you purchase an external monitor.

Even within the iMac category, there are 21 and 27-inch models, with lots of possible modifications in each one. Likewise, MacBook Pros currently have 13 and 16-inch models, which you can upgrade to astronomical prices if you wish to do so. Time to compare all this variability side by side.

Design

To choose MacBook Pro vs iMac, ask yourself how do you actually use your computer most of the time. Do you sit at the same desk at home or at the office? Do you have to switch between meeting rooms all day long and frequently travel overseas? This answer might already inform your decision, since iMac and MacBook Pro were originally designed with different use cases in mind.

Visually, iMac or MacBook Pro is a matter of preference. Both machines are stunning, made of high-grade aluminum, with sleek minimalist silhouettes — true examples of industrial design at its peak.

Ergonomically, however, neither get their full marks. Typing day in and day out hunched over a laptop is not recommended, so if you use your MacBook at home or work for long periods of time, you should consider getting a proper stand and an external keyboard. Interestingly enough, iMacs are not completely ergonomic either and, due to lack of vertical adjustment, can’t be placed at eye level without being propped with a stand or a stack of books.

Processing power and RAM

Since both iMacs and MacBook Pros get virtually the same chips (adjusted for size), the latest being the ninth generation of Intel Core i9, they are on equal footing when it comes to comparing their potential power output.

Currently, 27-inch iMacs offer 6-core i9s with Turbo Boost and anywhere from 3 to 3.7 GHz computing frequency. Surprisingly, 16-inch MacBooks are not too far behind, offering either the same 6-core processor with 2.6GHz, or an 8-core one with 2.3 or 2.4 GHz. To put this in perspective, the Geekbench test measures the performance of a 3.6 GHZ iMac as 1246, and 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro as 1122. Pretty close.

What might, however, dissuade you from getting a maxed out MacBook Pro is the way it handles heat. There have been reports with the latest top-of-the-line models going into Turbo Boost mode too often and heating up, which could lead to their decreased lifespan and just be plain annoying. Low and mid-tier models seem to be fine.

As for RAM, new iMacs and MacBooks come with either 8 or 16 GB of 2666 MHz DDR4 memory, and are both configurable up to 64 GB at extra cost.

Screens and graphics

If there’s anything that Apple computers have always been unanimously praised for that would be the quality of their screens. Innovations in resolution (Retina, Liquid Retina), brightness, and color accuracy (P3 wide color gamut, True Tone) are nothing short of outstanding. It’s hard to compare MacBooks to iMacs here — they are both winners. And if you need some more screen real estate for your MacBook, you can always get an external monitor.

Those interested in graphics processors, MacBook Pros come with AMD Radeon Pro 5500M with either 4 or 8 GB. iMacs get a leg up here with Radeon Pro 580X or Radeon Pro Vega 48, both with 8 GB of memory. That said, users who don’t directly work in graphically intense fields won’t notice any difference.

For gaming, it might be better to look into iMac vs iMac Pro, or even build your own PC, once you find out how much iMac Pro costs.

Storage

You might think that when it comes to storage, iMac would take the prize. But you would be wrong. By default, iMacs come with 2 TB Fusion Drives. What is iMac’s Fusion Drive? A mix of HDD and SSD storage. And upgrades to pure SSD are costly, maxing out at 2 TB.

MacBook Pros, on the other hand, are equipped with 1 TB of SSD by default, which you can upgrade up to a whopping 8 TB (costs $2,200 though). Still much better.

Available ports and accessories

By now, you’ve probably heard the dongle story — various examples of how many extra adapters you need to buy for your MacBook Pro to have access to widely used connectors, since the laptop only features four USB-Cs. Some people will then be delighted to find out that iMacs still have four USB-As, two USB-Cs, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and an SD card slot.

One more thing to consider is keyboard dependability. While the new 16-inch MacBook features revamped scissor keys, older 13 or 15-inch models still have butterfly keyboards, which are prone to breakage. Since all MacBooks come in unibody design, keyboard repairs can be really costly, and iMacs might seem more future-proof in that sense.

Price

While it might seem that iMacs would cost more than MacBooks — they are truly large and powerful machines — the opposite is actually true. Looking at the default builds offered by Apple, the most expensive 27-inch iMac ($2,299) costs less than the entry-level 16-inch MacBook Pro ($2,399). After all, you do pay for all that portability.

How to make your MacBook last longer

If you do decide to get a MacBook to be able to work from anywhere you want, your top concern for its longevity should be making sure its battery will serve you for as long as possible. Indeed, there’s a way to get 20% more battery life out of your MacBook right now.

Endurance is a must-have utility for all MacBook owners. Living in your menu bar, it seamlessly monitors flash plugins, hides background apps, slows down your processor when not in use, checks taxing apps, and much more. You have the option to customize when exactly does Endurance kick in to maximize its benefits for your situation.

How to monitor the state of your Mac

Even if you have a new iMac or MacBook Pro, knowing its vital performance indicators can help you detect weak spots or problems early on and, hopefully, resolve them while you’re still under Apple’s warranty. Conversely, knowing what your old Mac is struggling with can point you towards something you should fix in your new setup (e.g. add more RAM or get a better graphics card).

iStat Menus is the ultimate Mac monitoring solution you need. Not only does it give you detailed graphs on your CPU and GPU performance, it also shows your RAM load, sensor temperature, disk state, network health, and more. All visually laid out for you just a click away in your menu bar.

How to make your Mac run faster

It’s no secret that with use your Mac will become slower and less responsive. Cache from apps, user and system logs, broken login items, rarely used large files — all will accumulate and tax your system. To get your Mac back to its brand new state, you need a proven automated solution.

CleanMyMac X is one of the most popular optimization utilities in the world. In just one click, it rids your Mac of every useless file clogging up your system, checks your Mac for malware, and runs maintenance scripts to generally speed things up. In addition, CleanMyMac X offers comprehensive privacy scans, the best-in-class uninstaller, a visualized comparison of bulky files and folders, and much more in a safe, secure, and intuitive environment.

Comparing design, power, memory, storage, screens, accessories, and other computer components, by now you probably know whether it’s a MacBook Pro or iMac that you’re planning to buy. Regardless of your choice, make sure to prolong its useful life with Endurance, monitor its performance with iStat Menus, and keep the whole setup optimized with CleanMyMac X.

Best of all, Endurance, iStat Menus, and CleanMyMac X are all available to you at no cost during a seven-day trial of Setapp, a platform with more than 170 essential Mac apps for any task at hand, from staying concentrated (Be Focused) to professionally editing photos and videos (CameraBag Pro). Try Setapp free and experiment with new possibilities — sky’s the limit!

Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.

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Remember the feeling of a brand new Mac? A Mac without rainbow wheels. A Mac that didn’t cause headaches or frustration. Below we’ll show you 15 ways you can shake off the dust from your system. All it takes it to disable a few things here and there.

Here’s How to Speed Up Your Mac

These simple steps provided below won't take much time, but will greatly help to improve your Mac's performance. If you do these activities regularly, you won't have to worry about the need to speed up your Mac again.

1. Find resource-hungry processes

Some apps are more power-hungry than others and can slow your Mac to a crawl. To see which apps are eating up your system resources, use Activity Monitor. You can open it from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder, or use Spotlight to find it.

Activity Monitor details five different resources: CPU, Memory, Energy, Disk, and Network usage. If your Mac is running slowly, pay special attention to the CPU section. It shows how processes affect the CPU (processor) activity. Click a column name, such as % CPU, to list all programs by the amount of CPU they’re using.

How to use activity monitor to speed up Mac

If you see that some app is using a lot of CPU power, you can close it from here by choosing the app with the mouse and clicking the X in the left-hand corner of the Activity Monitor.

2. Manage your startup items

It goes without saying that a clean startup helps speed up slow Mac. When your Mac launches faster, it takes less time to do anything. No waiting for Safari, Chrome or Firefox to launch — they open instantly. How do you get such speed? Well, when your Mac boots up, it runs a lot of unnecessary apps. But it’s quite easy to take control of it. Go to your System Preferences > Users & Groups and then click on your username. Now click on Login Items and select a program you don’t immediately need when your Mac starts up, and click the “-” button below.

3. Turn off visual effects

A great tip to help you when you wonder how to speed up your Mac is to turn off visual effects. Sure, they look pretty, but who cares if your Mac is running slowly? Turning off some of the features can greatly speed up iMac or MacBook.

Here’s how to speed up a Mac by turning off some visual effects:

1. Click System Preferences > Dock.
2. Untick the following boxes: Animate opening applications, Automatically hide and show the Dock.
3. Click on Minimize windows using and change Genie effect to Scale effect.

4. Delete browser add-ons

All articles on how to speed up Mac mention browsers. It's 2020 and today's browsers got simply too complicated. Chrome and other browsers often get overloaded with various add-ons and extensions we install on top of them. These tools do a useful job like checking our grammar but we pay for that with reduced browser speed. You can battle that by reducing the number of open tabs (a good practice in and off itself) and by removing any browser extensions you don't need.
Here is how to delete extra browser extensions in all 3 main browsers:

5. Reindex Spotlight

If you recently updated your OS, you would be aware of the slowness that occurs when Spotlight is indexing. This only takes a few hours and then your Mac will be fine. But sometimes the indexing gets stuck, and you need to speed up a Mac. To solve this problem, you need to reindex Spotlight by going to System Preferences > Spotlight and clicking on the “Privacy” tab.

Now drag your hard drive from Finder into the Privacy List. Once added, remove it by clicking the “-” sign. The indexing will start again, but hopefully, after a few hours, it will finish properly and boost your Mac speed.

6. Reduce Desktop clutter

Remember, every desktop icon takes up RAM space. Fewer icons — the faster your Mac gets. When your Desktop is clean, restart your computer. And the 'Desktop Stacks' feature lets you put those icons in order. If you're running macOS High Sierra or older macOS version, don't worry. The mere deletion of desktop items will make your MacBook faster.

7. Empty the caches

Cache files are temporary data used to speed up the processes. For example, a web browser will cache web pages to download a website faster when you revisit it. Sounds great, right? Actually, it is, but there is always “but.” Over time, these cache files take much storage on your Mac, and instead of speeding things up, they slow your computer down.

So how to speed up MacBook by emptying the caches? There are two ways: you can clean them up manually (step-by-step) or you can remove them in a second with a cleaning utility CleanMyMac X.

If you want to clear cache automatically, do the following:

1. Launch CleanMyMac — download the app for free here
2. Choose System Junk.
3. Click Scan and then Clean.

That’s it!

However, if you decide to clean cache files manually, check out his guide on “How to Clear Cache on a Mac.”

8. Uninstall unused apps

Another proven way to speed up MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or iMac is to uninstall the application you don’t need anymore. So how to remove unwanted apps on your Mac? You may be surprised to find out that simply dragging them to a Trash bin is not enough. It leaves gigabytes of junk behind. Dragging documents and movies to Trash works fine but apps should be uninstalled completely. Check out a step-by-step guide on “How to Uninstall Apps on a Mac.” It describes the manual way and the easy way.

There are also unseen apps, called launch agents that may slow your Mac down. For example, your internet download speeds suddenly plummeted. How to speed up downloads on Mac? Delete background agents that cannibalize your internet speeds.

9. Clean up Mac’s hard drive

If you want the most bang for your buck, cleaning your hard drive is by far the best and easiest way to speed up MacBook or iMac. Go through your hard drive and clean out everything that is slowing it down. But what is slowing down my Mac? What to look for? Caches, logs, apps, widgets, hidden trash, large and old files.

Extra step: Delete large unused files

Think of a car that has a heavy load in the trunk. For all its engine power, it cannot really go fast. The same happens on your Mac only your disk is stuffed with heavy files.
1.Go to Apple menu > About this Mac >Storage.
2.Click on “Manage…”

In the menu that appears, click on Documents. These should be your largest space-wasters. In our case, these are movie files. Review these and move them away onto an external drive.

Of course, you can clean up your Mac manually. But finding and removing all these things takes time. And you have to know where to look. The good news is that there is an easy solution to the problem. CleanMyMac X, by MacPaw has everything you need to finish the 3-hour task of hard drive cleanup in under 5 minutes. Even more, it will clean up the junk you didn’t even know about and speed up Mac.

10. Update your Mac (OS and hardware)

Typically, Macs take care of themselves. Having the latest software from Apple makes speeding up your Mac simple. To check your version of the operating system, click the Apple icon in the top left corner of your screen and then About This Mac. Make sure you have the latest macOS/OS X installed (or the latest you can install since not all Macs upgrade to macOS Catalina).

As for the hardware upgrade, as you’ve probably guessed, it is costly. But if your OS is the latest possible version and you’ve cleaned up the hard drive, and you still have troubles with speed, this could be your solution. Keep in mind that upgrading some hardware is not possible for certain Macs.

Upgrading to the latest OS and upgrading your hardware will typically solve a bunch of slowness issues.

11. Create a new user profile on your Mac

If you want to go even further than updating the macOS — simply create a new user profile on your Mac. Some settings in your current user profile may have been compromised or got cluttered with outdated system logs. You can scrap all these and start your profile afresh.

1. Click the Apple logo > System Preferences.
   
2. Click Users & Groups.
3. Press to Unlock changes.
4. Add a new user with a “+”

Next up, you will have to import your crucial user data to your new account. Luckily, macOS has a special Shared Folder just for this purpose. It can be found by clicking Finder > Go > Computer > Macintosh HD > Users. Drop your documents to this folder and then log in to your new account. Well done! You’re starting a new life!

12. Free up RAM using Terminal

If you made it to this tip, you probably have enough skill to start using Mac's Terminal app. It's like using a magic wand — there are dozens of helpful combinations that you can use to speed up mac OS. One of them is used to free up RAM instantly.
You can apply this trick when your system is running out of available memory. In other words, when a particular app freezes up and desperately needs some fresh memory.

1. Open Terminal app via Launchpad.
2. Paste in the following command: sudo purge
3. Hit Enter.
4. You will be asked to enter your system password

If you're not comfortable with using Terminal, there is a shortcut way to free up RAM that requires no hacking skills.
You can download the app I've mentioned above, CleanMyMac X, preferably, the 2019 version.

1. Download CleanMyMac X here.
2. Navigate to the Maintenance tab.
3. Click Free up RAM
4. That's it!

Extra tip: Add more RAM

How to speed up my Mac? How to get it run faster? In fact, upgrading RAM is usually a great solution for improving your Mac’s performance. But first, check how much RAM you physically have on your Mac.

1. Click on the Apple logo > About this Mac...
2. Look out for Memory specs

The normal amount in 2019 is anything above 8 GB of RAM. An extra 8 GB RAM card will cost you around $30.

The more RAM your Mac has at its disposal, the more windows or tabs you can have open without slowing the system down. With more RAM, the operating system isn’t making calls to virtual memory which uses the hard drive and slows down the system considerably. Here’s a comprehensive guide on “How to Upgrade Your Mac’s RAM.”

One more hardware solution to speed up your MacBook is to reapply MacBook’s thermal paste which has probably worn off over time. The tell-tale sign for this is your Mac overheating too often. The thermal paste transfers heat away from your Mac’s processor thus making it more efficient.

13. Reset SMC & PRAM

Sometimes your Mac will act strange for no apparent reason — it sleeps or shuts down unexpectedly, the battery doesn’t charge properly, the keyboard backlight behaves incorrectly, and your Mac performs slowly. If these issues are not solved by restarting your computer, you’ll need to reset SMC (system management controller) and PRAM (parameter RAM).

How to speed up MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and MacBook

Resetting the SMC

First of all, you need to determine whether your Mac’s battery is removable. That’s because the process of resetting the SMC for computers that have a non-removable battery is quite different.

If the battery is non-removable:

1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Press Shift+Control+Option on your keyboard and press the power button at the same time. Hold the keys and a power button for 10 seconds.
3. Release all keys.
4. Press the power button to turn on your Mac.

If the battery is removable:

1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Remove the battery.
3. Press the power button and hold it for 5 seconds.
4. Press the power button again to turn on your computer.

How to speed up iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Pro

1. Shut down your computer.
2. Unplug a power cord and wait 15 seconds.
3. Plug the power cord in.
4. Wait 5 seconds and press the power button.

Resetting the PRAM

1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Press the power button.
3. Press the Command+Option+P+R keys at the same time.
4. Hold the keys until your Mac restarts.
5. Release the keys.

Resetting SMC and PRAM may seem to be difficult, but it can really help with Mac speedup.

14. Replace your HDD with SSD

So you're asking yourself how to speed up my Mac — but have you tried hardware solutions? You can breathe new life into your Mac by replacing its traditional hard drive with a solid-state one. Adding an SSD will make your computer boot faster, copy files in the blink of an eye and make the system really fast when multitasking.

A word of caution: it’s recommended that you consult a professional before attempting any hardware upgrades yourself because the process is quite challenging. And don’t forget to make a complete backup of your data before replacing your HDD with SSD, so that you’ll be able to restore all important files if something goes wrong.
By today's standards, a good SSD will have 240-256 GB of capacity. It is recommended to clean install the macOS on the new drive. When asked about the formatting system, choose the APFS+ file system which works much faster.

15. Use CleanMyMac X

If you don’t feel like spending the next several hours trying to get your Mac in shape manually, there is a great solution. Download CleanMyMac X and let it do the job for you. This powerful utility is the best way to speed up old Mac. It has a dedicated feature, called Speed that battles the slow macOS. It does some of the following:

• Disables your Hung Apps
• Disables Heavy Memory Consumers
• Runs macOS Maintenance Scripts
• Switches off extra Login items and more

Some users reported that the Speed feature is pretty impressive, especially on older Mac models.

Now, speed up your Mac, take a deep breath, do a Mac speed test and come to thank us.

Here is a short video recap of what we've discussed above.

Macbook Pro Vs Imac 5k

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