IdeaWell

Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

Why E cores make Apple silicon fast

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

1. Apple Silicon is the fastest single‑core, power‑efficient CPU in the market

“Apple has the best silicon team in the world… they choose perf per watt over pure perf” – philistine
“Apple’s chips are very strong on creative tasks… they have the best single core performance” – drob518

2. Windows/Linux feel sluggish mainly because of corporate software and legacy hardware

“Windows feels sluggish because a lot of the components in many Windows machines are dogshit – especially storage” – mschuster91
“My work MBP also can drain the battery in a couple hours of light use… because of FireEye / Microsoft Defender” – nerdsniper

3. Thermal throttling and fan design are the main limits of Apple laptops

“The M1 MBA… it only feels sluggish at > 400 Chrome tabs open because only then swapping becomes a real annoyance” – mschuster91
“The M1 MBA… it’s only competitive for short bursts of serious CPU work… the thermal limits do kick in pretty quickly” – eru

4. Apple’s heterogeneous‑core scheduler (P/E cores + QoS) gives it a real advantage over other OSes

“Apple’s scheduler can tell performance‑critical and background workloads apart without taking guesses” – m132
“The Apple software stack makes heavy use of thread pools via libdispatch… QoS influences which thread picks up the work item” – drob518

These four themes capture the bulk of the discussion: the raw performance of Apple silicon, the perceived slowness of Windows/Linux, the practical limits imposed by thermal design, and the architectural advantage of Apple’s scheduler.

🚀 Project Ideas

BenchMate

Summary

  • A cross‑platform benchmarking suite that runs realistic workloads (video encoding, code compilation, AI inference, file‑system I/O, network transfer) on Apple Silicon, Intel, AMD, and Linux systems.
  • Provides side‑by‑side performance, power, and thermal metrics in a single dashboard, eliminating the need to rely on synthetic benchmarks or fragmented online data.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Developers, system admins, hardware reviewers, power users
Core Feature Automated, repeatable real‑world workload tests with configurable parameters and comparative reporting
Tech Stack Rust for performance, Docker/WSL for isolation, WebAssembly for cross‑platform UI, PostgreSQL for result storage
Difficulty High
Monetization Revenue‑ready: tiered subscription (free community, pro $9/mo, enterprise $49/mo)

Notes

  • Users like maccard and twoodfin complain about “benchmarks that don’t reflect real workloads”; BenchMate directly addresses that.
  • The tool can be used to validate claims like “Apple M5 beats Intel in single‑core” with real data, sparking discussion and credibility.
  • The open‑source core encourages community contributions of new workloads and platforms.

MacTaskMaster

Summary

  • A macOS utility that visualizes, controls, and optimizes background processes, QoS levels, and core assignments.
  • Allows users to pin tasks to P/E cores, throttle CPU usage, and set per‑process QoS, mitigating the “Spotlight, iMessage, Defender” CPU drain issues.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Power users, developers, corporate Mac users
Core Feature Real‑time process‑to‑core mapping, QoS editor, auto‑throttle rules, integration with Activity Monitor
Tech Stack SwiftUI, Combine, macOS APIs (Process, QoS, IOKit), CoreData
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby (open‑source) with optional paid “Pro” bundle adding advanced scheduling rules

Notes

  • Addresses frustrations from maccard, nerdsniper, admissionsguy about background processes hogging CPU.
  • Provides a UI for the “E vs P core” discussion, letting users see the scheduler in action.
  • Encourages community scripts to automate common throttling patterns.

ThermoControl Pro

Summary

  • A macOS fan‑control and thermal‑management suite that offers custom fan curves, pre‑heat profiles, and external cooling integration.
  • Helps users avoid the 7‑minute throttling window on M1/M2 Air and M3/M4 laptops, and reduces fan noise on Mac Studio/Pro.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience MacBook Air/Pro users, content creators, gamers
Core Feature Custom fan curves, temperature sensors, external cooling device API, pre‑heat scheduling
Tech Stack Swift, IOKit, CoreBluetooth (for external coolers), SQLite
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue‑ready: one‑time $19.99 or $4.99/month for cloud‑based profile sync

Notes

  • Directly solves drob518’s “throttling after 7 minutes” pain point and zozbot234’s external cooler use.
  • Provides a “fan‑noise vs performance” slider, appealing to users who value silence.
  • Can be integrated with macOS’s Energy Saver to auto‑adjust when battery is low.

MacPerf

Summary

  • A macOS performance‑profiling tool that exposes the full set of PMU counters, offers flamegraph generation, and provides a UI comparable to Linux perf.
  • Bridges the gap highlighted by saagarjha and throw234232t3 between macOS and Linux profiling capabilities.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Developers, performance engineers, researchers
Core Feature PMU counter collection, real‑time tracing, flamegraph export, cross‑process call‑stack analysis
Tech Stack Swift, Metal for GPU‑accelerated rendering, libpmu (Apple’s PMU API), Rust for low‑level data collection
Difficulty High
Monetization Revenue‑ready: $29.99 license or $9.99/month for cloud analytics

Notes

  • Addresses the “Instruments only supports 10 counters” frustration and the need for deeper insight into CPU usage.
  • Enables developers to validate Apple’s QoS scheduling claims and compare against Linux perf.
  • Encourages community plugins for custom counter sets and visualizations.

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