How operating frequencies of CPU cores used by the latest base M5 chip compare with those from previous families in the M series, and what that means. Complete with updated tables for all current chips.
M2
Why is an M2 Pro or Max preferable to an M1 Pro or Max? Is 8 GB of memory sufficient? Can I extend the internal SSD with an external drive? Can I buy and upgrade?
How Apple’s new CPU cores can guess which code to run, and which data to load from memory. How those speculative techniques can be exploited, and should we be worried?
Running older macOS, support for Intel apps and kernel extensions, booting from an external drive, Boot Camp and Windows support, cloning, and startup key combinations.
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.
Explains the three different settings, including Permissive Security, why you might need to reduce security, and how to do so using Startup Security Utility.
If you don’t know your M2 from an M3, here’s a short summary of the timeline of their release, and their major differences, before we all get our heads around the coming M4 Macs.
Simply having a boot volume group with a System snapshot in it won’t get your Mac to start up from that disk, particularly if it’s an Apple silicon model. Some details.
Secure Boot and its 5 stages, the SSV, support for external bootable disks, the SEP, Recovery, and lightweight virtualisation.
Memory, from L1 instruction cache to main memory, and how it came to be Unified. Why the internal SSD isn’t like others, and why it’s so essential.
The Eclectic Light Company 