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[sporkman]

I'm still running the box in my profile - a Gigabyte GA-Z170N-Gaming 5 motherboard with a core i5-6500 (4 core, 3.2GHz), 16GB RAM and onboard Intel graphics (HD 530), as well as an assortment of drives. This box is still on 10.12.6 with all current updates.

I really like the case, it's a pretty tiny unit that fits in my desk cupboard.

The performance is mostly OK, but things feel a bit laggy compared to my 2018 MBP 13". Is there any low-cost option to get a bit more oomph that makes sense?

Some notes on performance:

• Some of the lag feels very graphics-based - slow redraws in Mail.app, occasional stutters in switching desktops
• Large Photoshop docs (2-3GB) can get very laggy on dragging an image around, copying and pasting layers into new documents
• Chrome can bog down, but I'm very much a 4 windows of 20 tabs each kind of guy
• Watching my RAM usage, I'm OK with 16GB. It's only very occasionally when I run windows in VMWare along with something like Photoshop where I start seeing myself go beyond like 13GB.
• I'd say browsing and some PS operations get CPU-bound

Some questions:

• Will my current mainboard support 10.14 and 10.15 without too much fuss?
• WIll my current onboard graphics support all the new junk Apple has introduced in the last few releases?
• Are my current installed kexts still valid for 10.14 and 10.15? I have Lilu, AppleALC, Intel Graphics Fixup, AtherosE2200 Etherrnet, FakeSMC (w/ ACPI, CPU, GPU, LPC sensors kexts), NullCPU Power Management, and USB Inject All.
• Is there any real gain in going to a seventh generation i5 or i7 CPU? Is this a big jump from my current CPU? Looks like a Kaby Lake i7 starts at about $330, an i5 Kaby Lake around $200.
• Is there any gain in moving to a low-end AMD GPU like a Radeon WX 2100 or an RX 560?
• Is it a better bargain to get a new mainboard, CPU and integrated graphics that are all current gen (Coffee Lake/9th gen?)?
• How good is the current gen of onboard Intel graphics. I do zero gaming, just need to support whatever the OS wants.

I really think that last question is the real one I want to ask...

 

[dfritchie]

A RX 560 would make a world of difference. Whatevergreen now includes the IntelGraphicsFixup and should be used with the AMD card. NullCPUPowerManagement should not be needed we have native power management with the newer clover's. My system is close to yours and I run Mohave and the PB of Catalina with no problems. Onboard graphics are only good for very light web browsing or email.

The only kexts I use are:
intelmausiethernet
lilu
applealc
whatevergreen
usbinjectall with ssdt
virtualsmc