Apple silicon chips are designed to minimise the power and energy they use without compromising their performance. One of many tricks they use is to run their CPU cores at variable frequencies, and in more recent models to shut down those cores they don’t need. Last year, thanks to the many who contributed information about their Macs, we were able to assemble a table of CPU core frequencies for all the M-series chips then available. Those demonstrated that frequencies differed between families such as M1 and M2, and between models within each family such as M2 Pro and Max, as well as between P and E cores.

Since then Apple has released two new chips, M5 Pro and Max, a new chip series in the MacBook Neo, and reclassified the CPU cores in M5 chips into three types, Super, Performance and Efficiency. Those have brought the greatest changes since the first M1 was released. This article briefly reviews what we know about CPU core frequencies, and appeals for information about those new models.

The best way to discover which frequencies are supported by the cores in the CPU of an Apple silicon chip is using the output of the command tool powermetrics. This lists frequencies for core types, and this article relies on those it gives being correct. Although it’s most likely that these frequencies aren’t baked into silicon, so could be changed, I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that Apple has done that in any released Mac.

Frequencies

If powermetrics is to be believed, the maximum frequencies of each of the CPU cores used in each generation differ from some of those you’ll see quoted elsewhere. Correct values should be:

• M1 E 2064 MHz or 2.1 GHz; P 3228 MHz or 3.2 GHz;
• M2 E 2424 MHz or 2.4 GHz; P 3696 MHz or 3.7 GHz;
• M3 E 2748 MHz or 2.7 GHz; P 4056 MHz or 4.1 GHz;
• M4 E 2892 MHz or 2.9 GHz; P 4512 MHz or 4.5 GHz.
• M5 E 3048 MHz or 3.0 GHz; Super 4608 MHz or 4.6 GHz (base variant only).

This is available for download as a Numbers spreadsheet and in CSV format here: mxfreqs1025

Why those frequencies?

Depending on workload, thread Quality of Service, power mode, and thermal status, macOS sets the frequency for each cluster of CPU cores. Those used range between the minimum or idle, and the maximum, usually given as the core’s ‘clock speed’ and an indication of its potential maximum performance. In between those are as many as 17 intermediate frequencies giving cores great flexibility in performance, power and energy use. Core design and development uses sophisticated models to select idle and maximum frequencies, and evidently to determine those in between.

Looking at the table, it would be easy to assume those numbers are chosen arbitrarily, but when expressed appropriately there are patterns. Apple’s engineers have clearly put considerable effort into picking optimised frequencies for each of the families and variants within them. If you think this is fine detail and only the maximum frequencies count, then bear in mind that both P and E cores spend a lot of their time running at those intermediate frequencies.

How to report frequencies

If you have a MacBook Neo, or a MacBook Pro with an M5 Pro or Max chip, you can add to this collection, please open Terminal and run the command
sudo powermetrics -n 1 -s cpu_power
which then prompts you for your admin password. A few seconds later the window will fill with a single set of measurements looking like this:

All I’d like is a copy containing 3 lines from that:

• Machine model at the top, to tell me which Mac it is, thus which chip.
• E-Cluster HW active residency, which contains a list of frequencies for the E cores in the Neo.
• P-Cluster HW active residency, which contains a list of frequencies for the P cores.
• Super-Cluster HW active residency, which contains a list of frequencies for the Super cores in the M5 Pro or Max.

To help, I have highlighted those three lines in the screenshot above, although what you see may well be different given Apple’s new Super core type.

Thank you.