Increasing your computer’s CPU speed can help improve performance, although overclocking may not be advisable for some laptops.
If you’ve been thinking about overclocking your MacBook Pro, you might want to think again.
Only with us on the same page is overclocking when you manually increase your computer’s clock rate, allowing the CPU to run at a faster clock speed than it would be out of the box.
This can come in handy if you want to get more mileage out of your device, however, it also means you’ve bypassed a built-in security measure. Overclocking can overheat your CPU, which can damage it irreparably, although this is not a guaranteed result if you overclock your device, as it can also be useful for creating games or content.
Some laptops come with built-in overclocking features, and many processors can be overclocked quite a bit, although the MacBook Pro range varies slightly in this regard.
While it may technically be possible to overclock a MacBook that comes with an Intel processor, it’s nearly impossible to overclock a machine running Apple Silicon M1 processors, since macOS blocks it at the software level.
Not only does Apple prefer people to leave their devices alone, but the MacBook Pro range also performs as efficiently as is, which makes overclocking somewhat irrelevant.
The MacBook Pro (2021) comes with a choice of either the M1 Pro or M1 Max chipset, which we’ve noticed perform well and deliver a smooth and fast experience, even without overclocking.
Since this laptop is designed to take on intense loads, such as 4K video editing, users are likely to get the most out of their laptop already. Overclocking the device will likely produce negligible results that may not even be noticeable, although it can overheat and may cause some stability issues.
While it may technically be possible to overclock your MacBook Pro, it won’t be possible to do without breaching Apple’s terms and conditions with third-party – and potentially dangerous – software. It is not recommended and we do not recommend trying it.
If you’re looking for a performance boost, check out our Best Laptops and Best MacBooks list to see what’s out there right now.