How to interpret various measurements reported in Activity Monitor, from % CPU to Energy Impact, and how they can be compared across different Macs.
powermetrics
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.
How can you tell when software uses the Neural Engine in an M1 series Mac? How much power does it use, and what is Espresso? Mysteries unravelled.
Current CPU % given in Activity Monitor can be misleading and has limited value for M1 models. Here’s how to improve it.
From the anatomy of the CPU cores, to the queues of threads in GCD, and assignment to a core cluster, this details how threads are managed for the M1 series chips.
An accessible summary of the CPU cores in M1 chips, and how they appear to be managed by macOS to get the best for different classes of process.
Results from running 10-70 identical compute-intensive processes on M1 chips shows the differences in strategy between background and high priority settings.
macOS manages the loading and frequency of M1 cores according to the QoS set, and rules which differ between the original M1 and the M1 Pro.
How the two Efficiency cores in the M1 Pro and Max chips can match the performance of all four E cores in the original M1.
Charging policy has changed recently for batteries in Apple’s laptops, and iOS/iPadOS devices. Your battery might also be too warm. How to check and what to do.
The Eclectic Light Company 