With every new product, Apple has a few little surprises up its sleeve. For the new MacBook Pro and Mac mini, early tests revealed the introduction of a very practical feature for heavy users: Performance mode.
The good news is the expansion of this energy mode on the more obvious Pro chips. In fact, the M4 Pro deserves it first. Prior to this generation, only the Max and Ultra versions could take advantage of this.
But what exactly is this performance mode? Activated from Battery Settings in the System Settings application, this option improves the graphics performance of Apple computers by pushing the ventilation system to the max.
“Additional cooling capacity allows the system to provide higher performance under heavy workloads.“explains Apple on its support page.
This functionality is ideal for creators using video and 3D editing software. However, the Apple company explains that the fans run at full speed, thus creating more noise.
For Ars Technica, which discovered the option’s availability during tests of the Mac mini M4 Pro, Performance Mode isn’t really useful. Journalist Andrew Cunningham did mention “a very small increase in some GPU tests”, which is clearly not worth the noise generated.
A conclusion to be taken with a grain of salt, given that Media was content to perform short-term tests, while Performance mode is designed to respond to strenuous tasks during longer sessions. The goal is to continuously limit the heat of the chip thanks to the ventilation system, and thus avoid overheating problems.
