Hacker News Reader

Comment by whitehouse3 | Hacker News Reader

Also own a 16" MBP. I use a kernel extension called Turbo Boost Switcher to control heat. The battery lasts 25% longer with turbo boost disabled and the machine never feels warm. I enable turbo only when rendering audio from my DAW or for long compiles. The machine otherwise never feels slow. Big win.

I'm dreading the day MacOS formally blocks kernel extensions.

View on HN

I'd love to see Apple build-in a Low Power Mode that does basically the same thing Turbo Boost Switcher does:

Ref : https://marco.org/2020/01/13/macos-low-power-mode-redux

Until Apple does this, I'm happy with my Turbo Boost Switcher Pro purchase.

They aren't being blocked. They are moving into userspace. Think FUSE.

But are they?

Apple isn't under legal obligation to expose equivalent functionality to userspace. Time will tell if they're moving kexts or blocknig them. My money's on blocking them.

The developers of Little Snitch have confirmed that, at the very least, network filtering would work in userspace via the new Network Extension framework: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22677849

Marco Arment suggests that it's possible that Turbo Boost Switcher might not: https://marco.org/2020/01/13/macos-low-power-mode-redux

And in userspace, you can only do what the APIs allow. Unless there is an API for directly manipulating the CPU Turbo Boost system, you're S.O.L. when kextload is dead

Has it come to this? We used to have physical turbo buttons, now we have soft un-turbo buttons. I think the grim reality in WFH is that laptops just really still suck compared to desktops for running dual monitors, an A/V feed with OBS, and 80 tabs across two browser windows along with a few other apps open. That load would have my i7 8th gen at 70-80%, but has my Ryzen 7 at maybe 10%. Not throwing away my laptop anytime soon, but I'm learning to love the desktop platform again.

Totally agree - Turbo Boost Switcher has dramatically changed how I use and like my 16" MBP - no more fan noise, no more burning fingers or blanket, and practically no noticeable difference in performance (e.g. Destiny 2 runs fine with it off).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com