Manage app power use
Improve your Mac’s energy efficiency to keep it cool and extend battery life
REQUIRES
Turbo Boost Switcher Free or Pro, AppPolice
YOU WILL LEARN
How to allocate CPU resources more efficiently across your Mac
IT WILL TAKE
15 minutes
YOUR MAC IS usually very smart when it comes to optimizing its energy usage, whether it’s maximizing the battery life of your MacBook, balancing the demands between multiple applications running at once, or simply preventing your Mac from overheating. That said, there are times when you may wish to reduce energy consumption further, and we’ve dug out a pair of complementary apps that let you sacrifice raw power for longer battery life and a cooler Mac. Pair them with Macs Fan Control (bit.ly/ml174fanctrl) and you have the ultimate toolkit for keeping your Mac running optimally.
TAKE CONTROL OF TURBO BOOST
Your Mac’s CPU supports Intel Turbo Boost Technology, which is basically an official way of overclocking the processor to deliver faster performance when resource–intensive applications like games or video–editing applications demand it. Unlike traditional overclocking, Turbo Boost has been cleverly engineered to avoid overheating, using a process known as CPU throttling to cut the processor’s speed if it runs over a certain temperature (typically 100°C/212°F).
Your processor’s base speed can be determined by choosing Apple > About This Mac — you’ll see its model is listed alongside its speed in GHz. To find out its maximum speed when Turbo Boost has been enabled, visit bit.ly/ml174procpu and click your Mac’s processor type followed by your Mac model. For example, our late–2018 Mac mini’s i5 processor has a core speed of 3.0GHz but can be boosted all the way to 4.1GHz.
Naturally, running your processor at the faster speed means it consumes more energy and generates more heat. If you’re plugged into wall power and your fans are doing their job (particularly if you’ve set up Macs Fan Control), then there’s little to worry about, but there may be times when you want to override the defaults. You may want to maximize battery life by setting a universal limit on your computer’s processing power, or you might need to rein in individual apps so they don’t consume more resources than necessary.
SET UP TURBO BOOST SWITCHER
Our first app is Turbo Boost Switcher. The clue is in its name: it allows you to disable Turbo Boost Switcher, meaning you can reduce both the power consumption and heat generated by your Mac as and when you need to. Both Free and Pro versions are available — Turbo Booster Switcher Free enables you to monitor your CPU load, fan speed and temperature via its main menu, view charts showing fan speed and CPU temperature over an extended period of time, plus toggle Turbo Boost off and on again as required.
Head over to bit.ly/ml174turboswitch to download the free version or purchase the Pro version ($9.95). If you purchase the Pro version, click “View content” after making your payment to obtain the download link and license code, which will also be emailed to you.
Once launched, Turbo Boost Switcher resides in the menu bar, where you can enable or disable it at will. Note that the first time you attempt to disable Turbo Boost, you’ll be told the system extension has been blocked — just click “Open Security Preferences,” click the lock if necessary to authenticate your account, then click Open. You’ll only be prompted to do this once.
If you opt for the Pro version, you gain a host of additional —and useful — features, such as the ability to automatically switch Turbo Boost off when certain conditions you specify are met. For example, when your battery stops charging or drops below a certain level, your fans reach a certain speed, or when certain apps are running. The annotation above reveals some of its best features.
POLICE INDIVIDUAL APPS
Turbo Boost Switcher is handy for applying a universal limit across your Mac, but if you’d like more granular control over how individual apps behave, visit bit.ly/ ml174app-police to download AppPolice. This lets you assign processor core limits on a process–by–process basis, making it easy to throttle back individual programs without penalizing other apps (see below).
While AppPolice’s primary purpose is to tame unruly applications that try to monopolize your computer’s resources, it’s useful in other ways too. It can rein in applications that cause your computer to run hot. This has a negligible impact on video conversion times, but when coupled with Macs Fan Control ensures the processor never hits 212°F, the point where it throttles back, reducing performance to prevent overheating.
Last but not least, here’s a bonus tool for owners of older dual–GPU MacBook Pros: gfxCardStatus (gfx.io) allows you to see which apps are using the more powerhungry discrete graphics chip. The app also allows you to force all apps to use your choice of GPU, whether discrete for performance reasons or integrated to reduce energy consumption.