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New 16-inch MBP with M1 Max to feature High Power Mode for intensive workloads
- mlex 5y agoThis feels like something that should always be enabled when you're plugged into AC power (maybe only automatic when you're at 100% battery).
- killingtime74 5y agoLower heat lengthens battery life span
- superjan 5y agoDunno, I think I’d rather wait in blissful silence.
- Marsymars 5y agoIf you really want silence, you're best off with the fanless MBA. Though Apple noted that in non-intense use the MBP should be silent, you can also see from their performance graphs[1] that the M1 is more efficient than the M1 Pro and M1 Max at low power levels. (<12 watts or so, from eyeballing the chart.) Makes sense when you consider that the M1 has more efficiency cores than the M1 Pro/Max. I'd actually like to build myself a home NAS/server with only Gracemont cores if we ever see Alder Lake-L available in a mini-ITX form factor. (Was going to try with Jasper Lake, but that seems to have been effectively cancelled with the chip shortage.) [1]. https://www.anandtech.com/show/17019/apple-announced-m1-pro-m1-max-giant-new-socs-with-allout-performance https://www.anandtech.com/show/17019/apple-announced-m1-pro-...
- AuthorizedCust 5y agoSome enjoy reduced fan noise, so lower power settings have value even when plugged in.
- gruez 5y agoTo add to this, apple probably already tuned the chip so that any additional power wouldn't meaningfully improve performance. You're not trading 10% more power for 10% more performance, you're trading 50% more power for 5% more performance (numbers made up).
- quitit 5y agoWhile the graphs are vague, apple’s performance v power graphs show this phenomenon. The highest performing laptops in the market are more like portable workstations rather than mobile devices - while on battery their performance is significantly throttled to provide a useful battery life. This contrasts from apple’s designs for the reason you’ve stated: they are capable performers while on battery.
- Bud 5y agoNot at all, actually. You're forgetting the heavy use of MacBook Pros by recording engineers and musicians. For them, having a machine that is fast without generating the incredibly annoying constant fan noise of the vast majority of PC laptops is a crucial feature. So no. Definitely not. The user should be able to toggle this. As Apple has wisely chosen.
- alx__ 5y agoIndeed, having this as a opt-in feature is best Nothing worse than trying to concentrate on something when "helicopter mode" suddenly kicks in :)
- my_usernam3 5y agoI like the option for both! Or even customizable. I had a laptop with a dedicated Nvidia card, and I could tell which programs to run on it, or whether i wanted to always on or always off. I loved it, was super easy to configure out the box as well!
- stephencanon 5y agoYeah, I kept my old fanless G3 PowerBook long beyond it’s apparent sell-by date for live performance stuff, where a fan was a non-option.
- msbarnett 5y agoMost of the time I'd rather have lower fan noise and a less hot chassis when I'm plugged in.
- mbesto 5y agoIIRC MBPs circa 2010ish would auto switch the GPU just like this.
- cultofmetatron 5y agowould be great if its active when plugged in and deactivated when on battery
- lugged 5y agoIsn't this standard on any laptop?
- dylan604 5y agoto an extent, but the automatic part is a sticky widget for this particular case. as other in this thread have commented, not all users may want the baggage that comes with running at 100% even if they are plugged in to mains.
- Tagbert 5y agoIt isn’t standard with Apple laptops. They normally don’t slow down on battery. They do reduce screen brightness by default, though you can override that.
- simondotau 5y agoThis will almost certainly be the case. Such a mode will likely sit within the "Energy Saver" section of System Preferences, which already has settings profiles for each power source.
- encryptluks2 5y agoWindows and Linux can do this already. Not sure why basic power management is such a challenge for Apple.
- dang 5y agoUrl changed from https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/10/21/high-power-mode-coming-to-16-inch-macbook-pro-with-m1-max-apple-confirms https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/10/21/high-power-mode-c..., which points to this.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- arcticfox 5y agoWell this would have been nice to know when ordering - although luckily I ordered a 16+Max anyways I wonder if this is priced in to the public M1 Max benchmarks we've seen already? (Presumably it was in their own presentation benchmarks)
- recursive 5y agoAnyone remember "Turbo" buttons?
- TacticalCoder 5y agoOf course! The crazy thing is that you could do it while the computer was running and it was mostly fine: DOS and many DOS games would just happily keep working, just at slighly different speeds. But then it wasn't uncommon for the PC to just freeze and then it needed a reboot. But the best feature, to me, was those PC with a turbo button that also had a seven-segment display showing the current speed. This was looking really cool.
- bestouff 5y agoI distinctly rememver taking one apart and being very disappointed: the segment display was completely fake and showed 2 predefined numbers, not correlated to the CPU frequency at all.
- jblazevic 5y agoUnless you set them correctly to actual CPU frequencies, in which case they correlated perfectly.
- Tagbert 5y agoWe added a variable frequency control to an IBM/AT and used it to adjust the CPU clock up to the point just below where the system would crash. Default was 6 MHz but we could push it up to around 10 MHz before it started crashing. That seemed amazingly fast at the time.
- MikusR 5y agoThey were to slow the cpu down.
- eyelidlessness 5y agoThis is technically correct (the best kind…) however many people will have a different experience because it was sometimes inverted to be more intuitive.
- _old_dude_ 5y agoI will show my age, but is there a turbo button [1] ? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_button https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_button
- aroundthfur 5y agoFunnily enough, this is how this is done on intel+linux: `echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo`
- jeroenhd 5y agoFor just a second there I thought Intel provides the kernel some kind of backwards compatibility mode to clock down to 4.77MHz like the original turbo button.
- jeffbee 5y agoThere is a pin PROCHOT on all Intel processors that can be used to drop the CPU (and IGP, if equipped) into its lowest-power but still running state. It's designed to allow external voltage regulators on the board to assert that they are overloaded, but I don't see why you couldn't also wire in a turbo button there :=)
- MikusR 5y agoOn my Lenovo Yoga it's always on when waking from sleep. You have to connect charger, even for a short time, to drop out of PROCHOT.
- gurjeet 5y ago> Contrary to what it suggests, the "turbo" button was generally intended to let a computer run slower than the speed for which it had been designed when pressed. Damn these trickster designers and their shitty design decisions. That's exactly the opposite of what I thought it did.
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- atoav 5y agoBut will the display connector fail after 2 years of regular use like with the last MBP?
- dylan604 5y agoI have hope that hardware will be improving now that Ive is no longer dictating. They removed the Touch Bar. They brought back ports and connectivity to the laptop. They've left the stupid keyboard behind. It looks like some sanity has been restored. I seems like someone at Apple finally got tired of everyone asking to make the bad man stop.
- threeseed 5y agoI really wish this myth would stop. Ive was not unilaterally responsible for deciding what constitutes a MacBook Pro or frankly any of the products Apple created. And he never dictated anything to anyone other than the Design team he managed. Major product decisions are always made across many parts of the company e.g. Product Marketing, Design, Hardware Engineering, Operations etc and are signed off by the Senior Leadership Team. MacBook Pro is a critical product for the company and the idea that one person is simply making all the decisions is just laughable.
- dylan604 5y agoYou don't want the arrows, don't be the one that leaves and suddenly things get better. Also, don't be the one in all of the marketing videos/on-stage demos/pointed out by the CEO as the one doing all of the designing. Not sure how us plebeian users are to know the difference. That's also part of the pros/cons of being SVP in charge. You're going to catch these arrows because you've signed off on all of these multi-group/people making decisions.
- threeseed 5y agoNot sure what videos you're watching but Apple for decades has included people like Phil Schiller and Greg Joswiak in their keynotes. You should look up what Product Marketing is because out of anyone they are far more responsible for what features go into a product.
- melony 5y agoWould the L-shaped MagSafe be able to exit the socket cleanly?
- chrischen 5y agoI thought it was odd the maxed out 14 and 16 have such a large gap in power requirements (99 watt charger vs 140 watt), but this makes the pricing a bit less palatable since 16 is only about $200 more. Still got the 14 since the 16 seems too bulky and heavy for a daily carry.
- musicale 5y agoThe new 16" is ~.8 pounds heavier, and a bit larger, than the 2016 15" model, whose size and weight I was pretty happy with (though I was less happy over time with the butterfly keyboard, poorly placed touchbar, missing physical esc key, and poor trackpad palm rejection.) It is still thinner than the 2012-2015 15" model (which had a perfectly functional keyboard and trackpad) but ~.3 pounds heavier.
- wellthisisgreat 5y agoOh thanks for bringing to my attention that it’s thinner than 2012-15 MBP! That one was thin enough already. I suppose the 0.3lbs could be shaved off by not carrying around a power supply
- chrischen 5y agoThe max is actually 4.8 lbs, not 4.7lbs. Not sure if that was factored in. But seeing as how I use my laptop to work in weird places portability and weight are actually important factors for me. I could manage the 16” size but the previous gen 16 inch was already pushing it for weight, especially if there are other things in the backpack. But seeing how this thing needs a big 140 watt supply means i can’t and even use the ultra compact 60 watt charger I have. So we’re looking at 5-6 extra lbs on my back!
- Tagbert 5y agoThat 140w charger is just for fast charge. You could get the 96w charger and be fine. You could also get a third-party charger like the GaN ones from Aukey and Anker that may be smaller and lighter.
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- Aeolun 5y agoThis strikes me as ridiculous. Do they mean that every other mac permanently runs at ‘less than full capability’ even when not in low power mode?
- imwillofficial 5y agoSo more control over the priority of workload vs battery life and noise profile is somehow a bad thing?
- Aeolun 5y agoIt is if only the max version of the machines has it.
- eyelidlessness 5y agoI’m pretty sure they all use whatever burst mode is available from their respective CPUs, within their respective thermal constraints. And were advertised as such.
- beezischillin 5y agoIt’s somewhat curious to see them take all previous criticisms on board and actually give people what they want. It’s a welcome change on the hardware side. Wonder if they’ll do the same with the software.
- Tagbert 5y agoThey did roll back most of the tab changes in Safari in Mac OS Monterey
- eyelidlessness 5y agoThe funny thing is this happened before, all the way back in (IIRC) v4. They introduced top tabs, which lasted through most of the betas, and reverted to bottom tabs under pressure. Which is surprising now, with almost all other browsers using top tabs. For several years I continued to use that beta version, patching it to use updated WebKit versions. I think it finally stopped working around v7 or v8.
- beezischillin 5y agoI mostly meant the betrayal of trust that's gonna happen when they enable client-side scanning eventually, but the tabs are a positive example of it, at least.