If Visual Look Up is so easy and low-power for Apple silicon Macs, maybe Tahoe’s new Foundation Models will prove more challenging, and wake up the neural engine.
Energy
Using powermetrics and log entries, a single image was processed on an M4 Pro, with content analysis and object recognition and look-up. How much power and energy did that use?
Low Power mode operates pre-emptive control of CPU core frequency to deliver the best compromise between low power use and performance. Here’s how it does so.
How CPU P cores have a frequency limit applied in Low Power mode, and how macOS regulates power use or temperature by controlling core frequency.
How Apple silicon CPUs control core frequencies and power use when running in Low Power mode. Includes M4 Pro and M3 Pro data, and estimates of energy requirements.
Apple refers to Energy Modes and Power Modes, and despite older MacBook Pro models offering Low Power mode, tells us that isn’t what Low Power mode is now. Here are the observations and explanations.
A matrix multiplication test appears to be run on the AMX matrix co-processor, and behaves differently from in-core tests. And what Power modes really do.
Power use in two in-core performance tests, by number of threads run, leading to estimates of total energy used by P and E cores running the same code, at high frequencies. How efficient are the CPU cores in the M4?
Less glamorous than the P cores, E cores are used to run background threads. Details of their architecture, how threads are managed on them and their efficiency.
Running threads at different frequencies on the same core type can’t save energy and extend battery endurance. That’s where 2 core types come in handy.
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