Short of buying a new Mac or a processor upgrade, adding RAM is the best way to improve performance. Install the maximum amount of RAM that your Mac will accept and your budget will allow.
Maintain ample free space on your startup disk
Mac OS makes extensive use of Virtual Memory, which requires free disk space on your startup disk. If you startup disk is nearly full, your Mac's performance will degrade considerably.
Turn off the eye candy
While everyone is impressed to see the stunning visuals of MAC, you can actually gain speed by avoiding the eye candy.
- Make the Dock less entertaining
- Open System Preferences > Dock.
- Select Scale Effect in the Minimize Using field.
- Deselect the Animate Opening Applications option.
- Disable window effects
- Tools such as COCKTAIL provide options to disable effects, such as zoom and rectangle when windows and files are opened and closed. The actual settings of these utilities change are already available in Mac OS but there is currently no provision for changing them in System Preferences.
- Avoid using an animated desktop background
- An animated desktop background steals cycles from other processes on your Mac. It is better to have a static picture as your desktop background.
- Close nonessential Dashboard Widgets
DASHBOARD widgets consume both Real and Virtual Memory at all times after being opened. You can reclaim these resources by closing nonessential widgets. To close a widget:
- OPEN DASHBOARD
- Press and hold the Option key.
- Move the mouse pointer over a widget you wish to close. The widget's Close button (X) appears in the upper-left corner of the widget.
- Click the widget's Close button.
Disable the automatic protection features of utilities
Utilities that constantly monitor your system for performance, automated data recovery, or viruses also use processor cycles. If performance is critical, disable the automatic protection features of such utilities, usually via their Preferences.
Disable or remove unnecessary fonts
Loading thousands of fonts by default can significantly degrade Mac performance. This is especially true if you use Font Book to install fonts and have not adjusted its preferences. by default, Font Book automatically enables newly-installed fonts. If you have hundreds or more fonts to manage, use third-party font-management application to enable, or disable font collections when required.
Perform regular maintenance
By running the Mac OS X maintenance scripts regularly you will help assure the best performance from your system
Check your processor performance setting
Some Mac’s decrease the processors speed to conserve energy. To adjust the processor speed, click Options in System Preferences > Energy Saver and make the appropriate adjustments in the Processor Performance menu.