Chosen Solution
A while back I learned the hard way about the massive performance drop if the laptop runs without having a battery connected to it. If I were only to connect the battery’s PCB (controller chip) without it being wired to the power cells of course, would my Macbook detect it as a battery?
There’s no performance drop whatsoever if you disconnect the battery on the Mac you’ve marked as being the one you’re interested in. The only inconvenience would be having time and date reset whenever you disconnect the plug. If you’re having performance issues even with battery disconnected, your problem is somewhere else, not the battery or its PCB.
@kevinc2019 Well, you’re wrong, to put it plain and simple. These are performance results with Geekbench 4, 10 years old Mac, quadcore i7 2,5Ghz, battery is still the original Dynapack, with 10 yrs age too. As you can see, data is supplied through browser. Performance is slightly better with battery only on multicore: Battery+Mains: MacBook Pro (17-inch Late 2011) Geekbench 4 ScoreSingle-Core Score 3425 Multi-Core Score 10702Geekbench 4.3.3 Tryout for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit)Result InformationUpload Date June 13th 2022, 9:53am Views 1System InformationOperating System Model Motherboard MemorymacOS 10.13.6 (Build 17G14042) Battery only (65% charged): MacBook Pro (17-inch Late 2011) Geekbench 4 ScoreSingle-Core Score 3422 Multi-Core Score 10941Geekbench 4.3.3 Tryout for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit)Result InformationUpload Date June 13th 2022, 10:02am Views 1System InformationOperating System Model Motherboard MemorymacOS 10.13.6 (Build 17G14042) Similar results on a more recent Mac: Battery+Mains: MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2017) Geekbench 4 ScoreSingle-Core 4316 Multi-Core Score 8477Geekbench 4.3.3 Tryout for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit) Battery only (75% charged): MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2017) Geekbench 4 ScoreSingle-Core 4389 Score Multi-Core Score 8206Geekbench 4.3.3 Tryout for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit) About 2% better as difference single core, about 3% less as difference on multicore. So much for the “modern laptops provide the best performance on mains”
Laptops are designed to use both battery and mains power. While they can and frequently do run on battery only, the power drain from the battery depends on the battery condition and the battery load, such as are you using an intensive game, video editing or several power hungry processes. Laptops using mains and battery do provide more power and give better results, as shown in the Geekbench 4 64 bit scores. As a 2012 Mac is using a ten year old processor, I’d recommend a new Mac with M2 chip that will last for another ten years.
