M4 Pro Performance Downgrade No One Talks About

This week, I’ve been delving into the capabilities of the new M4 chip, focusing specifically on the M4 Pro found in both the Mac mini and the 16-inch MacBook Pro. These chips are nothing short of fantastic, but during my tests, I stumbled upon a noteworthy observation regarding their performance modes that hasn’t received much attention elsewhere. Specifically, Apple has introduced a significant change to the power modes in this iteration.

For the first time, Apple has rolled out distinct power modes for the “Pro” chips, which were previously restricted to the Max variants. You can access three power modes within System Settings: Low Power, Automatic, and High Power. What stood out during my evaluations is that the Low Power setting noticeably reduces performance to a greater extent than I had anticipated.

The data presented above is from tests conducted on the M4 Pro Mac mini using Cinebench R24. The single-core performance between modes aligns with my expectations and reflects patterns seen in earlier generations, with High Power mode yielding a 13% improvement over Low Power. However, the disparity in multi-core performance is particularly striking. The M4 Pro shows a 55% increase in speed in High Power mode compared to Low Power, which is reminiscent of the more basic M3 or M1 Pro chips. This notable decline in performance is evident in the M4 Pro MacBook Pro as well.

To offer some context, I conducted the same tests on the previous-generation M3 Max MacBook Pro. There, High Power mode only demonstrated a 33% advantage in multi-core performance over Low Power. Interestingly, while the M4 Pro scored 8% higher in multi-core performance than the M3 Max in High Power, the M3 Max had a 27% edge in Low Power mode.

For most users, these performance variations won’t raise any issues, as the Automatic mode is set as the default and Apple has maintained consistent scaling between Automatic and High Power modes.

I haven’t yet assessed the M4 Max, so it’s still uncertain if this decreased performance in Low Power mode is exclusive to the M4 Pro or indicative of the Pro series across the board.

A plausible explanation might be tied to optimizing the efficiency curve. To maintain an adequate power budget in Low Power mode, Apple could have limited the cores, resulting in the more pronounced impact on multi-core performance compared to single-core performance.

I look forward to examining the M4 Max when I get the opportunity, as there have been limited distributions of the unit for review.

Another lingering question is whether Low Power mode actually enhances battery life in the MacBook Pro beyond what we’ve seen previously. Although Apple asserts that these new M4 chips provide increased battery longevity compared to their predecessors, they haven’t clarified how this improved efficiency is achieved. Given that the battery sizes remain unchanged from the previous generation, the data may suggest that the more constrained Low Power mode was used during battery life evaluations, potentially leading to greater battery longevity. While this may seem like Apple is manipulating figures to boost battery life claims, from a user experience perspective, the takeaway could be valid. Users will simply need to be aware that when utilizing Low Power mode on battery, they are compromising performance significantly with the M4 Pro.