So, if you're wondering how much performance your m1 mac loses when it's low on battery.

[mactinkerlover]

I performed an experiment yesterday on my m1 macbook pro. I knew that intel macs would throttle performance quite a bit when the battery got low, so I was wondering how much the m1 macs throttled. Well here are my findings.

So, in order to drain the battery fast, I just ran cinebench and unigine valley at the same time indefinitely (yeah, I know really bad for the hardware, but whatever,) the fan went full blast obviously and the battery drained pretty fast. Okay, so when it got to 10 percent, it gave me the low battery warning, but there was no throttling yet, the system still allowed it to consume 22 watts for both the cpu and gpu.

Once it got to 4 percent, it started to throttle. It seems to throttle around 6 to 7 watts max for the cpu and the performance cores throttled from their normal 3.2 ghz to 1.7 ghz, but the efficency cores stayed the same as they usually do, with their full clock speed of 2 ghz i believe and they consumed their normal 1 watt of power, while the performance cores were only allowed to consume 5 as opposed to their usual 12.

So here are the performance numbers. In a normal cinebench r23 run, I usually get 7700. But with it throttling from low battery, it was getting 5500. However, browsing the web and watching youtube videos and other normal use did not feel compromised. It felt pretty much the same as when the battery is full or plugged in. I then plugged it back in, and interestingly, it seemed to throttle until it got above 5 percent. After that, everything is back to normal. Hopefully this gives some context on what happens if your m1 mac gets low on battery. Even though this was kind of random, it was still fun to find out. And hey, at least it doesn't completely disable the performance cores (that's what I was actually wondering).

 

[KShopper]

Interesting, thanks for posting this.

People get worried about the MBA thermal throttling but as your battery test shows, the M1 is so much faster than the prior entry level class devices that even throttled it's a beast. Not something you're going to notice during normal productivity app, browsing, Zoom call type usage at all.

 

[mactinkerlover]

Interesting, thanks for posting this.

People get worried about the MBA thermal throttling but as your battery test shows, the M1 is so much faster than the prior entry level class devices that even throttled it's a beast. Not something you're going to notice during normal productivity app, browsing, Zoom call type usage at all.

Sure, it was a fun experiment. And I'm sure the m1 air would be very similar to the pro in this sense when it gets low on battery and the performance.

 

[acidfast7_redux]

I performed an experiment yesterday on my m1 macbook pro. I knew that intel macs would throttle performance quite a bit when the battery got low, so I was wondering how much the m1 macs throttled. Well here are my findings. So, in order to drain the battery fast, I just ran cinebench and unigine valley at the same time indefinitely (yeah, I know really bad for the hardware, but whatever,) the fan went full blast obviously and the battery drained pretty fast. Okay, so when it got to 10 percent, it gave me the low battery warning, but there was no throttling yet, the system still allowed it to consume 22 watts for both the cpu and gpu. Once it got to 4 percent, it started to throttle. It seems to throttle around 6 to 7 watts max for the cpu and the performance cores throttled from their normal 3.2 ghz to 1.7 ghz, but the efficency cores stayed the same as they usually do, with their full clock speed of 2 ghz i believe and they consumed their normal 1 watt of power, while the performance cores were only allowed to consume 5 as opposed to their usual 12. So here are the performance numbers. In a normal cinebench r23 run, I usually get 7700. But with it throttling from low battery, it was getting 5500. However, browsing the web and watching youtube videos and other normal use did not feel compromised. It felt pretty much the same as when the battery is full or plugged in. I then plugged it back in, and interestingly, it seemed to throttle until it got above 5 percent. After that, everything is back to normal. Hopefully this gives some context on what happens if your m1 mac gets low on battery. Even though this was kind of random, it was still fun to find out. And hey, at least it doesn't completely disable the performance cores (that's what I was actually wondering).

Interesting.

Nice experiment and nice data.

 

[jake871]

You say the efficiency cores used their usual 1 watt. How did you measure that?

 

[mactinkerlover]

You say the efficiency cores used their usual 1 watt. How did you measure that?

Just using sudo powermetrics in the terminal, it will give you a live readout of all the power consumption and clock speeds of all of the cores.

 

[anshuvorty]

I performed an experiment yesterday on my m1 macbook pro. I knew that intel macs would throttle performance quite a bit when the battery got low, so I was wondering how much the m1 macs throttled. Well here are my findings.

So, in order to drain the battery fast, I just ran cinebench and unigine valley at the same time indefinitely (yeah, I know really bad for the hardware, but whatever,) the fan went full blast obviously and the battery drained pretty fast. Okay, so when it got to 10 percent, it gave me the low battery warning, but there was no throttling yet, the system still allowed it to consume 22 watts for both the cpu and gpu.

Once it got to 4 percent, it started to throttle. It seems to throttle around 6 to 7 watts max for the cpu and the performance cores throttled from their normal 3.2 ghz to 1.7 ghz, but the efficency cores stayed the same as they usually do, with their full clock speed of 2 ghz i believe and they consumed their normal 1 watt of power, while the performance cores were only allowed to consume 5 as opposed to their usual 12.

So here are the performance numbers. In a normal cinebench r23 run, I usually get 7700. But with it throttling from low battery, it was getting 5500. However, browsing the web and watching youtube videos and other normal use did not feel compromised. It felt pretty much the same as when the battery is full or plugged in. I then plugged it back in, and interestingly, it seemed to throttle until it got above 5 percent. After that, everything is back to normal. Hopefully this gives some context on what happens if your m1 mac gets low on battery. Even though this was kind of random, it was still fun to find out. And hey, at least it doesn't completely disable the performance cores (that's what I was actually wondering).

I have had the same experience with my M1 MBA.

 

[zorinlynx]

I just ran cinebench and unigine valley at the same time indefinitely (yeah, I know really bad for the hardware, but whatever,)

It's not "bad for the hardware"; the hardware is designed to handle it. Don't start or spread a myth that we shouldn't be able to use our machines to their fullest.

 

[Benjamin Nabulsi]

Fun fact, Microsoft throttles their surface book 2 and 3 to 400MHz whenever their fanless laptop can’t deal with heat so I will take 1.7 any day.

 

[apparatchik]

Out of curiosity, how was the battery life? How long did it took to reach 4% running cinebench constantly?

 

[Mr. Awesome]

Wow that is awesome performance. You’ll be able to suck every last bit of juice out of these Macs without slowing down.

 

[Populus]

Today I just experienced the same as op, @mactinkerlover . With 3% of battery, I ran cinebench and I got 5500 on my MacBook Air. The system was running pretty snappy otherwise.

Now I’m trying to charge it with the 18W charger from my iPad Pro, and it doesn’t charge, apparently. I will plug the MacBook Air charger instead.

 

[cjaccino]

It's not "bad for the hardware"; the hardware is designed to handle it. Don't start or spread a myth that we shouldn't be able to use our machines to their fullest.

Sorry @zorinlynx, but the original author is right. There are extremes that manufacturers, including Apple, should, but doesn't, address and account for. Over time, high heat can harm semiconductors. Although tolerances are usually provided for temperature, humidity, etc, laptop manufacturers are engineering to targets that they don't quite reach. Heat management in laptops is among the most difficult of these issues. Like many things we buy, electronics are sold to us when their manufacturers deem them good enough. They aren't always perfect.

Thirteen months into owning my 2012 15" Macbook Pro, the first Retina release, I decided to try out crypto mining. Crypto mining is notoriously hard on hardware, even tougher than 3D graphics in gaming. The software I chose could mine using any of the CPU, the onboard GPU, or the discrete GPU, and it could use all three simultaneously. So I did.

It took just twenty minutes for the laptop to freeze up. Upon rebooting, I experienced extreme visual artifacting when the discrete GPU was in use. I speculate that the use case of running both graphics chips and the CPU in parallel at 100% may not be common. The built-in fans and whatever throttling may have been in place were not enough to maintain reasonable temperatures. The room was no more than 75F (probably more like 70F).

You don't drive your car at max speed, right? We want to get the most out of our purchases, but we should be at least a little judicious. These Apple laptops can last 7+ years when taken care of.

 

[EmotionalSnow]

Sorry @zorinlynx, but the original author is right. There are extremes that manufacturers, including Apple, should, but doesn't, address and account for. Over time, high heat can harm semiconductors. Although tolerances are usually provided for temperature, humidity, etc, laptop manufacturers are engineering to targets that they don't quite reach. Heat management in laptops is among the most difficult of these issues. Like many things we buy, electronics are sold to us when their manufacturers deem them good enough. They aren't always perfect.

Thirteen months into owning my 2012 15" Macbook Pro, the first Retina release, I decided to try out crypto mining. Crypto mining is notoriously hard on hardware, even tougher than 3D graphics in gaming. The software I chose could mine using any of the CPU, the onboard GPU, or the discrete GPU, and it could use all three simultaneously. So I did.

It took just twenty minutes for the laptop to freeze up. Upon rebooting, I experienced extreme visual artifacting when the discrete GPU was in use. I speculate that the use case of running both graphics chips and the CPU in parallel at 100% may not be common. The built-in fans and whatever throttling may have been in place were not enough to maintain reasonable temperatures. The room was no more than 75F (probably more like 70F).

You don't drive your car at max speed, right? We want to get the most out of our purchases, but we should be at least a little judicious. These Apple laptops can last 7+ years when taken care of.

I agree, extremely long heavy use will shorten the lifespan of the processor and other parts, although only minimally. The battery is probably the biggest problem, it won't like the heat.

 

[acidfast7_redux]

I agree, extremely long heavy use will shorten the lifespan of the processor and other parts, although only minimally. The battery is probably the biggest problem, it won't like the heat.

I agree. I buy a computer to use it. It's a disposable tool that allows me to complete more work than without.

 

[BeefCake 15]

Don't start or spread a myth that we shouldn't be able to use our machines to their fullest.

Why don't you try to restate this in a none accusatory fashion and with better manners....

 

[jumpcutking]

The performance at low battery is very encouraging. Wonder what that means for high intense operations in general but, very intriguing.

 

[adib]

Interesting, thanks for posting this.

People get worried about the MBA thermal throttling but as your battery test shows, the M1 is so much faster than the prior entry level class devices that even throttled it's a beast. Not something you're going to notice during normal productivity app, browsing, Zoom call type usage at all.

PSA: thermal throttling and battery throttling are two different things. The first one is designed to safeguard the hardware from burning up. The second one is designed to safeguard your work from getting lost due to the battery suddenly losing power and shut down the system (which usually happens when it's below 80% healthy).

 

[eicca]

Under every possible throttling circumstance, the M1 is still more powerful than my 2010 Mac Pro. Amazing.

 

[amartinez1660]

What you have done here does full justice to your profile’s handler name.

 

[rezwits]

I performed an experiment yesterday on my m1 macbook pro. I knew that intel macs would throttle performance quite a bit when the battery got low, so I was wondering how much the m1 macs throttled. Well here are my findings.

So, in order to drain the battery fast, I just ran cinebench and unigine valley at the same time indefinitely (yeah, I know really bad for the hardware, but whatever,) the fan went full blast obviously and the battery drained pretty fast. Okay, so when it got to 10 percent, it gave me the low battery warning, but there was no throttling yet, the system still allowed it to consume 22 watts for both the cpu and gpu.

Once it got to 4 percent, it started to throttle. It seems to throttle around 6 to 7 watts max for the cpu and the performance cores throttled from their normal 3.2 ghz to 1.7 ghz, but the efficency cores stayed the same as they usually do, with their full clock speed of 2 ghz i believe and they consumed their normal 1 watt of power, while the performance cores were only allowed to consume 5 as opposed to their usual 12.

What's weird to me is why do people complain when a "DEVICE" is hanging on for dear life (i.e. to stay powered on), it's like people think it's not allowed to or has no right to start to scramble and slow things down. PISSES ME OFF. This just goes back to the throttle gate iPhone lawsuits, and judges who made Apple pay cash to freaks. Errg. And now what? The thing gets to 4% and it's like trying to stay on so you can safely close and save documents, but OH NO, "it's throttling" WTF?!? I am 100% glad "it's throttling"

I understand you just want to see the performance, it's just UGH

 

[Miha_v]

What's weird to me is why do people complain when a "DEVICE" is hanging on for dear life (i.e. to stay powered on), it's like people think it's not allowed to or has no right to start to scramble and slow things down. PISSES ME OFF. This just goes back to the throttle gate iPhone lawsuits, and judges who made Apple pay cash to freaks. Errg. And now what? The thing gets to 4% and it's like trying to stay on so you can safely close and save documents, but OH NO, "it's throttling" WTF?!? I am 100% glad "it's throttling"

I understand you just want to see the performance, it's just UGH

Chill out, you're comparing apples with oranges; temporarily throttling CPU in low battery status or permanently throttling CPU in phone (without ever telling a customer), two very different things.

OP, Nice experiment.

 

[acidfast7_redux]

Just using sudo powermetrics in the terminal, it will give you a live readout of all the power consumption and clock speeds of all of the cores.

nice. never knew that

 

[acidfast7_redux]

PSA: thermal throttling and battery throttling are two different things. The first one is designed to safeguard the hardware from burning up. The second one is designed to safeguard your work from getting lost due to the battery suddenly losing power and shut down the system (which usually happens when it's below 80% healthy).

This happened to my last machine. It would go 4% to 0% instantaneously. Max capacity had dropped to around 63% as well.

 

[SirAnthonyHopkins]

What's weird to me is why do people complain when a "DEVICE" is hanging on for dear life (i.e. to stay powered on), it's like people think it's not allowed to or has no right to start to scramble and slow things down. PISSES ME OFF. This just goes back to the throttle gate iPhone lawsuits, and judges who made Apple pay cash to freaks. Errg. And now what? The thing gets to 4% and it's like trying to stay on so you can safely close and save documents, but OH NO, "it's throttling" WTF?!? I am 100% glad "it's throttling"

I understand you just want to see the performance, it's just UGH

You have no idea what you’re talking about do you.