Logic Pro 11 on Apple Silicon: Are CPU Cores Fully Utilized?

Does Logic Pro 11 fully utilize the efficiency cores and the performance cores in Apple Silicon chips? I run a series of tests in this video to investigate.

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⏰ Timestamps:
00:00 Start
00:19 Which Apple Silicon Chips Will I Test
00:42 On Testing M3 Pro Chip
01:10 How the Tests Are Set Up
02:18 Addressing "Your tests are not realistic!"
3:31 Logic Pro 11 Core Utilization on M1 Max, M1 Pro and M2 Pro
03:51 Logic Pro X vs Logic Pro 11: Core Utilization (1024 Buffer)
04:12 Logic Pro X vs Logic Pro 11: Overall Multi-core Performance
04:21 Logic Pro 11 Performance on M1 Max/M1 Pro vs M2 Pro
04:40 Logic Pro X vs Logic Pro 11: Core Utilization (64 Buffer)
04:54 Running the Tests with A Stock Logic Pro Plugins (ChromaGlow)
05:11 Logic Pro 11 Core Utilization with ChromaGlow
05:22 Interesting Difference in Performance with ChromaGlow vs Saturn 2
06:37 Key Takeaways

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[vincewatson_official]

You win the Internet every time you post a video. You have saved me personally over €5000 over the last 2 years. Thank you for your deep analysis.

[JamesZhan]

Thank you for watching! 🙏 

2⃣Another recurring comment is that e-core should be reserved for system tasks/light tasks. OK, the problem is that when you have a chip where almost half of the cores are e-cores (e.g. 11-core M3 Pro or the 8-core M2), it makes a HUGE difference to be able to make your computer to pull out all the stops (aka use all the cores fully) to handle CPU intensive tasks as needed.

3⃣Lastly, the point of this video (and my other DAW testing videos) is to help fellow musicians, audio engineers and music producers make more informed decisions when determining which Mac to buy, because it’s not as simple as “buy the latest because it’s better.” What you use as your primary DAW is a critical factor here due to different levels of core utilization.

I appreciate your support and stay creative!

[Yhuntermusic]

Love these videos! Please throw Ableton Live 12 into the hat as well (if possible) 🙏🏾

[Robert]

What WAS the case with multi-core Intel processors (and may still be with Apple silicon), is that where music production is concerned, high single-core clock-speed performance was more important than total core count of the processor.


This was true because while a high core count MAY be able to allow your Mac running any DAW to handle a 'larger', more demanding project file, the workload of a single plug-in instantiation cannot be distributed across multiple cores. So as many users have experienced, a very cpu-intensive plug-in could halt your song-file with the dreaded processor overload dialog when the majority of cpu cores were just chillin'… because the demand of just one plug-in instantiation was more than the assigned core could handle.

Since through successive iterations of Intel processors we saw that models with fewer cores generally had higher single core clock speeds, while the models with the most processor cores were clocked at lesser (slower) slower speeds. For audio/music applications, if you want to run one or several virtual synth plugins with high polyphony (for example), then you'd likely do better with a processor having fewer cores, but able to run at a higher clock speed.

I've said all this because I don't have any knowledge that this radically different ARM-based SoC architecture has changed the importance of looking for high single-core clock speeds.

This is important work you've done in discovering the need (for logic users at least) to focus the 'performance core' count of the processor when shopping for a Mac, but AFAIK, high single-core performance is still more important than total 'performance core' count for this kind of work.

[halvardlundnorway]

Your work is important! Thank you. Waiting for the M5 Pro chips ;)

[jacobhelbig]

On the ChromaGlow issue: I think it might run at least partially on the Neural Engine, which is much faster on the M2 generation than on the M1 chips.

[rondavid]

Bro you're a Legend! Keep on grinding!

As I am using an M1 Macbook Pro and regularly hit a limit. I'll probably switch to reaper as the daw uses all the cores...

[gavmurray]

chromaglow uses the Neural engine. new version of Neural engine is better would be my thought

[ansoncall]

There might be a good reason why the efficiency cores aren't utilized...you want them running background tasks, and do what they're good at. Logic needs the heavy lifting of the performance cores. That being said, a good compromise might be a toggle in the preferences to enable the e core utilization (hey and why not add how many are available).

[slash]

Really appreciate this analysis. "Efficiency cores" seem kind of useless, if they're only being used to offload low-power tasks then having a whole core sitting mostly idle basically all of the time seems like a waste of resources.

[fabiomoreira]

i'm still running my studio based on Imac Core i9 10cores. Waiting for the M4!

[AboutHouseMusic]

Your videos are highly appreciated. This gives me a good idea of which hardware configuration to go for. This whole situation with the CPU cores is a massive let down when you consider that Logic is run, maintained and developed by Apple... or is it? It would be nice to get an official statement from Apple, I don't feel like they'd be inclined to comment. At this stage in the game, the discussion should be about the utilisation of GPU cores. It definitely raises eye brows.

[eds]

Pro Tools supposedly added support for efficiency cores - I don’t suppose you’d be able to test the difference between the previous versions and the latest?

[purecolors]

Hey is the key takeaway the same for ableton 11? Does Ableton mostly run/use performance cores similar to Logic?

[jswebbproductions]

great video! I really appreciate you doing this .... thank you

[ErikAnders]

M1 Max with audiogridder is crushing right now

[JoseGRendons]

Can you please do the same test with Ableton Live 12?

[failuretolaunchdrums]

I look forward to your videos. Thank you!

[D-One]

Pointing out that a benchmark is not realistic is silly, that's not it's purpose and it's near impossible to make a realistic 'project test'. keep it up James, you got the best channel on youtube on this topic!

[craighudson]

I can't believe they never fixed this for LP11. Interesting that on the CPU meter within logic, it is showing 12 processing threads, but on activity monitor it is obvious the performance cores are the ones doing the heavy lifting while the e-cores are not doing much to assist at all.