Volta with mid-2018 MBP

[hulkk]

Whats the situation with Volta's support with mid-2018 MBPs?

Are you getting benefits regarding temperature or battery life?

https://volta.garymathews.com

 

[fireedo]

CMIIW, on their web Volta isn't supporting mid 2018 MacBook Pro line up yet, maybe at least for now

 

[maflynn]

It seems to work for me.

For giggles, I set the power limit to 10w and here's the result

The first image is with Volt not doing any limiting, i.e., I disabled the Power Limit checkbox.

Second test is setting it to a ludicrously low setting, just to avoid any confusion

As you can see the numbers don't lie

 

[bully worm]

^awesome. My trial period expired and I was wondering if should go ahead and buy the app. It seems from other recent posts, 45w is the sweet spot.

 

[poorcody]

I'm thinking of experimenting with Volta, but their FAQ wasn't clear to me on how it affects SIP. Do you have to partially disable SIP to use it, or only do so when installing? In other words, any security risk to using it?

 

[airlied]

Wo it works with coffee lake??

 

[1096bimu]

It seems to work for me.

For giggles, I set the power limit to 10w and here's the result
View attachment 778740

The first image is with Volt not doing any limiting, i.e., I disabled the Power Limit checkbox.

Second test is setting it to a ludicrously low setting, just to avoid any confusion

As you can see the numbers don't lie

View attachment 778741

You might as well get a 12" MacBook if you just want a 1Ghz laptop

 

[airlied]

You might as well get a 12" MacBook if you just want a 1Ghz laptop

why snarky about it? Sometimes people just want their laptop battery to last longer when doing casual stuff outdoor.

 

[chrizzz09]

Just for reference, my almost 5 year old 13" MBP Late 2013 with the i5-4258U 2C/4T @ 2,4Ghz has a Cinebench score of 244 points without any power/wattage caps.

But even with a score of 244 it is still perfectly capable for office work, e-mails, browsing, video streaming, music listening, etc without any slowdowns, so imagine the battery life you could get on these new models with a wattage limit of 10W while doing normal non-intensive office work!

 

[maflynn]

You might as well get a 12" MacBook if you just want a 1Ghz laptop

You misunderstood my post. I had set it to 10w just for the test, not that I run it at 10w.

Did you not see this?

Second test is setting it to a ludicrously low setting, just to avoid any confusion

 

[poorcody]

I'm thinking of experimenting with Volta, but their FAQ wasn't clear to me on how it affects SIP. Do you have to partially disable SIP to use it, or only do so when installing? In other words, any security risk to using it?

To answer my own question, in case anyone else has it, under High Sierra you can leave SIP on, but must disable blocking kernel extensions that are unsigned. So you are opening up one potential security hole, but leaving SIP otherwise in tact.

Under Mojave, you have to disable SIP entirely at this point. Not sure if that is because it is beta or not.

 

[Premal212]

To answer my own question, in case anyone else has it, under High Sierra you can leave SIP on, but must disable blocking kernel extensions that are unsigned. So you are opening up one potential security hole, but leaving SIP otherwise in tact.

Under Mojave, you have to disable SIP entirely at this point. Not sure if that is because it is beta or not.

Apologies for my lack of knowledge around this, but how severe are we talking of a security hole? I wasn't ready to go ahead with it because of this.

 

[SDColorado]

Apologies for my lack of knowledge around this, but how severe are we talking of a security hole? I wasn't ready to go ahead with it because of this.

I can appreciate that. I had Volta running under HS, but have not enabled it under Mojave, because I am not sure I want to implement that change.

 

[maflynn]

Under Mojave, you have to disable SIP entirely at this point. Not sure if that is because it is beta or not.

I was unaware of that, since I'm on HS

 

[poorcody]

Apologies for my lack of knowledge around this, but how severe are we talking of a security hole? I wasn't ready to go ahead with it because of this.

I think in regards to High Sierra, the security "hole" is rather small... most of SIP is intact, and even though an unsigned kernel driver is allowed, I think you would still have to approve the installation of one.

Totally disabling it for Mojave though... I hope that is a beta issue only... up to El Captain SIP didn't even exist, so it's not like the world will end, but it is a good level of protection against malware...

More info on SIP:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204899

 

[Howard2k]

It would also be handy for heat management too right? Assuming the SIP issues are not insurmountable.