What's the Best OS For Your Mac?

 

68000 Macs - Mac OS 6.x

Much faster but with limited capabilities. If all you want to do is play old games, word processing, old spreadsheets, HyperCard 1.x, etc... System 6 is about 50% faster than 7.0 and 90% faster than 7.5.x.

68020 Macs - Mac OS 6.x

See above.

Systyem 6 is about 25% faster than 7.0 and 30-40% faster than 7.5.x

68030 Macs - Mac OS 6.x

See above.

System 6 is about 25% faster than 7.0 and 30-40% faster than 7.5.x

If you need 7.x for compatibility, use 7.1 if you have 8 megs of ram or less, 7.5.5 if you have more than 8 megs of ram. There is no need to run 7.6.x unless your ISP demands it (in which case you should ask yourself: 'self, why am I surfing on an 030 Mac at all??'

68040 Macs - Mac OS 7.5.5

There is no need to run anything less than 7.5.5 on any 040 Mac unless you have less than 4 megs of ram. In this case run 7.1 8.x runs very slow on an 040 unless you have tons of ram and a fast hard drive.

PPC Macs - Mac OS 7.5.5, 8.5

If you have less than 32 megs of ram and don't need OS 8.x for compatibilty, use 7.5.5. If you have 32 megs or more, run 8.5 as it is 100% PPC code (no 68k code to slow down your Mac.)