Virtualisation of macOS on Apple silicon does deliver performance that’s impressively close to that of the host. Here are the figures to demonstrate it.
M3
Few acts can excite an audience as much as the plate-spinner darting between crockery threatening to wobble out […]
In a wide range of in-core tests, CPU performance in VMs is close to that of code running native on the host, and M3 VMs are faster than M1 native. With one significant exception.
When running on M3 hosts, macOS VMs lack support for some of the instruction set, and Accelerate commands may be much slower. Why?
New version helps you check which features are available in your Mac’s CPU, and more, linking to a page here with detailed information.
Apple’s M2 chip uses a newer version of the CPU core instruction set. This increases its capability, thus how well it will cope with future apps and macOS, compared with the M1.
M1 CPUs support ARMv8.5A, which doesn’t support the new bfloat16 floating-point format now widely used in AI. That’s likely to put them at a disadvantage.
M3 chips widen the gap between Pro and Max variants. They also change relative performance between P and E cores to make M3 CPUs more versatile.
The M1 cycle took 16 months from basic to Ultra; that shortened to 12 months for the M2. As the first Studio M2 Ultras were being prepared for shipping, the M3 cycle started.
Coping with 64-bit code, APFS, the different CPU, the SSV, System Settings, Recovery Mode, and how to get the best from migration and sharing in iCloud.
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