What Mac do I need to run Logos fast?

If you question is what Mac do I need to run it as fast as Accordance, then my answer is that Mac doesn't exist. Accordance is just faster than Logos. When a Mac gets made that will run today's Logos as fast as Accordance is today, that Mac will likely run Accordance faster. That said, get a MacBook Pro with dedicated graphics and 16GB of RAM and an SSD. L:ogs runs relatively quickly on such a computer. I'm on one now. I haven't run it on the new iMac Pro, but I'm sure it would as well. Also make sure you're on a fast internet connection. I have 300Mbs at home and it starts up, syncs and is ready to go in about 15 seconds. At church it's slightly longer, but when I'm out at a public wifi hotspot it can take 30 seconds due to the syncing speed over slower internet.

128gb memory is enough

Kevin A. Purcell:

get a MacBook Pro with dedicated graphics and 16GB of RAM and an SSD. L:ogs runs relatively quickly on such a computer.

Ben Parks:

The SSD is really what helps Logos with speed. I use an older Mac Pro from 2009, but with 12 gb of RAM and that SSD, it's lightning quick compared to what it was before.

Both good pieces of advice. I've owned PCs all my life and had Logos on them since 2008. Until a year ago when I bought a 2012 Macbook Pro and upgraded it to 16GB RAM and a SSD. Logos runs significantly faster and very smooth! I suspect the SSD makes the most difference, and then having plenty of RAM helps too.

I have not used Accordance but I find Logos runs quite well on my 2011 MacBook Pro I7 with a SSD and 16GB ram. I don't notice any lags but the fans speed up noticeably while Logos is indexing.

I have a late 2016 2.6 ghz i7 MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM and an SSD. Logos is pretty good, but it will never be as fast as Accordance on the same machine.

The problem with OP's question is that "fast" is subjective.  What's fast for one may not be fast for another.

First, you need to consider how large library is.  If you have a huge library then you'll need more RAM and more storage.  

Regarding a new computer, all you need to know is the following:

1) You want a mulit-core CPU as Logos takes full advantage of that for indexing. 
2) You want a large standalone SSD (not Fusion drive which is a small SSD logically paired to a pretty-fast 7,200 RPM HDD) to house your data.  I'd recommend 1 TB if you could swing it.
3) Last, you want RAM.  That's important as it's what allows you to run Logos and other things at the same time.  I'd recommend 16GB at least, but if you don't do a lot of other processing at the same time (running Chrome for Youtube, etc) then 8 GB may work for you.  


I have a 15" mid-2012 Macbook Pro with a DIY Fusion drive made from a 512GB SSD and a 750 GB 7,200 RPM drive and 16GB of RAM.  I know this goes against the "don't do a fusion drive, but the bulk of my fusion drive is SSD so I'm not too worried about it.  It's not as fast as my old desktop that I gave my son (12-cores @ 3.2GHz, 16GB of RAM, and 1 TB of SSD storage over two drives), but it works.  I can pull what I'm looking for quickly and it does the job.  I have late 2015 iMac showing up today (to replace the system I just gave my son) with 24GB of RAM, a 3.3GHz i5 quad core, and I'm going to mount a 512GB SSD externally to house Logos and Accordance.  Between all of these things, it should work out pretty well.  

I appreciate all the responses. Very helpful. I realize that "fast" is subjective —I don't really care about the difference between the-blink-of-an-eye and half-the-blink-of-an-eye, I just want to have a Mac that is fast enough so I'm not waiting 3 seconds for windows to open and 30 seconds for Passage Guide searches to complete. Again, I realize these searches are compiling ridiculous amount of material — my complaint is not with the app, it's with my computer. No, I don't have a very large library — couple hundred volumes. Yes, I currently have an SSD. Yes, I realized that Logos won't run as fast on the same computer as Accordance — that's ok — I only want Logos to run as fast on my new computer as Accordance did on my old computer. I see a lot of people talking about 16 GB of RAM — noted. Logos apparently does a good job taking advantage of more cores — noted. So does anyone know of a video showing Logos running fast on one of the Macs you've described?

Charles:

My observation is that each new version of Logos for the Mac runs better than the previous one. I don't believe it's fair to compare Logos' performance on a Mac to that of Accordance. Just my opinion

Logos for Mac definitely has improved. Personally version 4 didn't ever feel like a full release version. Version 5 and beyond it has become better and much faster.  I can still have it hang if I sleep my MacBook before closing it, but it I think it is faster and generally much less buggy with every release.  Sadly, it is still the only product on my machine that likes to send bug reports to Apple.  

However, I do slightly differ with you in your analysis of why the difference of speed. Aside from the coding strategy which has been debated numerous times on this forum, the speed issue is in my view part of Logos being more of a full fledged Swiss Army knife. If you stripped Logos down to pure Bible Study, ditched the home page, changed the synchronisation strategy, indexing, etc., I would guess it would be faster.  I am sympathetic to this because some of the devotional aspects of Logos I like and have even suggested in these forums of late that building a stronger tool around Lectionaries would be awesome.  The more tools we add to this Swiss Army knife, the bigger the program and more complex the code.

But going to your assertion that it is not fair to compare Logos to Accordance on a time to mature front, I think there has been plenty of time. Logos for Mac started almost decade ago (November 2008).  Which if we are being generous, isn't a full fair baseline because I believe I recall Logos 1.x was outsourced and internal development at least visibly known to users started with version 4 in October 2009.  Nine years or ten years, this is no longer a new venture in programming terms.

That being said, I do agree with you that it has improved.  I am not of the belief that it will ever be as fast as Accordance, but I am ok with that and am generally happy with how the product performs.  If a user wants to run Logos, similar to other demanding programs, then you need to have an up to date computer with plenty of RAM, multiple processors and an SSD.