Older Mac with similar hardware much slower than newer one

[FionnM]

We have to Macbooks. One is a Macbook Pro (retina) from early 2013. It has:

• processor: 2.6 GHz Intel core i5
• Memory: 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM
• Startup Disk Mcintosh HD
• Intel Iris Graphics 4000 1536 MB

The newer one is a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) It has:

• processor: 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5
• Memory: 8 GB 1867 MHz DDR3
• Intel Iris Graphics 6100 1536 MB

The older one is much slower at times simply when browsing the internet and switching back and forth between tabs or browsers. It can take many seconds at times for the computer to respond. At other times it responds fine. We almost never have this problem with the newer computer.

Does the difference in hardware likely explain why the newer one is so much faster when browsing? Or is it likely that we could do something other than changing hardware (like adding RAM) to the older one to prevent the slow response times? We have already tried solutions like "Clean My Mac."

Thank you

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Are they both 13" MBP's? What version of macOS is running on them? To compare apples to apples, you'll have to match them perfectly with OS, the apps that are running, the amount of free space and so on.

The newer MBP has a faster SSD than the 2013 model, so that's an advantage. Both the machines are dual-core and if you look at the specs for the early 2013 and early 2015 models, you'll notice the geekbench scores there, the 2013 model is an average 1500 points slower.

The slightly faster RAM is an advantage, but not enough to make one be significantly faster than the other.

You should not use Clean My Mac or anything malware.

Please use Onyx to clean your system.

 

[FionnM]

Thank you for the suggestions. We will try Onyx and see if that helps.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

...Does the difference in hardware likely explain why the newer one is so much faster when browsing? Or is it likely that we could do something other than changing hardware (like adding RAM) to the older one to prevent the slow response times? ...

The differences in hardware that you listed shouldn't be significant. If the newer one has a solid state hard drive (SSD) and the older one has a rotating disk hard drive (HDD/RDHD) that would explain the difference.

Otherwise I created an entire Web site to help you track down why an older Mac isn't as fast as you might expect it to be:

Macintosh Slowdown Solutions
Macintosh OS X Slowdown Solutions

 

[Slydude]

You've gotten some excellent suggestions so far. Assuming that the two computers are running the same macOS version I wonder if there is some extension or other piece of software running in the background on one computer that isn't running on the other machine.

One thing that might provide useful information is to create new user accounts on both machines, log in to those accounts, perform some of the tasks that seem to be slowing down and see what the differences are.

 

[MacInWin]

The older one is much slower at times simply when browsing the internet and switching back and forth between tabs or browsers. It can take many seconds at times for the computer to respond. At other times it responds fine. We almost never have this problem with the newer computer.

How are they connected to the LAN? Do both have the same results at a speed test like Speedtest.net? The only example you have given is more impacted by network speed than internal hardware.