Using a test of compressing a 1 GB file with AppleArchive, measurements of power used by core clusters show how efficient using the E cores really is.
Activity Monitor
Using CPU % or Energy values in Activity Monitor appears to show that running code on E cores is less efficient than on P cores. Don’t believe a word of it.
How can you tell how much memory is being used by the GPU when both CPU and GPU use Unified Memory? Does it matter anyway?
Current CPU % given in Activity Monitor can be misleading and has limited value for M1 models. Here’s how to improve it.
In Activity Monitor, % CPU isn’t on a scale of 0-100. In M1 Macs, it also makes no distinction between E and P cores, nor does it allow for their changing frequency.
Activity Monitor’s Memory view is the perfect place to watch for memory problems, such as a leak. Demonstrated here in macOS 12.0.1 and 12.1.
From killing a process, through a regular restart, to Recovery and a bootable external recovery disk, all you need to know about fixing your Mac in macOS 11 and 12.
Is logging out and back in again a good way to deal with problems? Although it can be, it might not do what you think it does any more.
If your Mac slows to a crawl, don’t just reboot it. Here’s how to discover what the likely cause is, and a structured approach to recovery.
Is Monterey burning your memory away? Here are two reproducible memory leaks which could explain that, plus two more than might.
The Eclectic Light Company 