[SOLVED] OS X Mavericks vs MacOS Sierra Speed for old Mac

[NeedHelpBuildingPC]

I dusted off my old lowest spec 2012 MacBook Pro with 4gb of ram and intend to use it as a light machine for basic tasks such as web browsing and writing text documents.
It has never been cleaned and so has many unused applications slowing it down.
What I'm unsure about is, would it be best for me to reinstall Mavericks when I do a system wipe, or the latest, Sierra. Has OS X improved optimization and speed on older machines with newer releases, or would it run faster if I reinstalled the Mavericks which might run faster?
I could eventually swap out the hard drive for an SSD and upgrade the ram if I think it's worth while, but I feel those resources could be used better in my current main custom PC.
Any help appreciated, thanks.

 

[captaincharisma]

it doesn't matter, for most software to work on a mac you need to have the latest version. that's how it works in the overpriced world of apple computers

 

[NeedHelpBuildingPC]

it doesn't matter, for most software to work on a mac you need to have the latest version. that's how it works in the overpriced world of apple computers

It doesn't matter if it can't run the latest programs, all I need is a web browser and a text editor, I have my main PC for everything else.

 

[captaincharisma]

it doesn't matter, for most software to work on a mac you need to have the latest version. that's how it works in the overpriced world of apple computers

It doesn't matter if it can't run the latest programs, all I need is a web browser and a text editor, I have my main PC for everything else.

mavericks should be fine then. it may be so old though that apple may not have a copy of it on there server anymore though. if that's the case you will have to create a rescue disk for sierra

 

[Sedivy]

Speaking from experience with my old macbook, try and keep up with update if the hardware allows you to and most are free if you have the previous version of the OS. They do try to optimize performance with successive releases (or have tried so far), and while I couldn't upgrade past maverick, every version up to it ran a bit better than previous one.
Every time I updated though, I did clean install, this would be my only recommendation, whichever version you decide to go with. Just updates tend to have major issues, and I wouldn't recommend that route at all if you want faster use/efficiency.