Apple's new 16-inch MacBook Pro will have a 'high power' mode

The most powerful version of Apple's new MacBook Pro, the 16-inch Pro with the M1 Max processor, will have a special setting called "high power" mode.

A few days ago, MacRumors contributor Steve Moser found references to the "high power" mode in macOS Monterey code, together with a description that reads: "Your Mac will optimize performance to better support resource-intensive tasks. This may result in louder fan noise."

Now, MacRumors has confirmed with Apple that the new mode will only appear on the most powerful configurations of the 16-inch MacBook Pro. This setting will likely be useful to folks who are doing very computing-intensive tasks on their machines, such as rendering large files, or (why not) playing a game.

Even though the 14-inch MacBook Pro can also be configured with the M1 Max chip, MacRumors claims the setting will only be available on the 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chip.

Earlier this week, Apple launched the new MacBook Pro, which comes in numerous configurations, with the essential elements being display size (14.2 or 16.2 inches) and processor (M1 Pro or M1 Max). The maxed-out M1 Max has 10 CPU cores and 32 GPU cores, and Apple says it's up to four times faster than last year's M1 chip (which was already pretty impressive).