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Does M2 Pro compare to those fast nVIDIA dedicated GPUs?
- Thread starter Kendo
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Wait for the likely M3 release.
To answer your question, any new gaming laptop with 4070 or better will likely be better performing than the M2 Pro, plus you get to play any game you want that runs on Windows. It's hard to compare games on macOS vs windows as Mac game's graphic settings don't always correlate on the windows side. Mac ports usually have less eye candy going on vs their windows versions.
Also, the main question is the games you want to play. I like playing AAA games so I ended up just getting a Lenovo Legion 7 when I'm traveling for gaming. I used to use a 2019 MBP 16 as a dual purpose machine for bootcamp gaming, but gaming on it killed its GPU as MacBooks don't have great cooling (at least the Intel ones didn't) I now have a M1 Max MBP 16, but gaming on Apple Silicon after 3 years is still pretty anemic.
To answer your question, any new gaming laptop with 4070 or better will likely be better performing than the M2 Pro, plus you get to play any game you want that runs on Windows. It's hard to compare games on macOS vs windows as Mac game's graphic settings don't always correlate on the windows side. Mac ports usually have less eye candy going on vs their windows versions.
Also, the main question is the games you want to play. I like playing AAA games so I ended up just getting a Lenovo Legion 7 when I'm traveling for gaming. I used to use a 2019 MBP 16 as a dual purpose machine for bootcamp gaming, but gaming on it killed its GPU as MacBooks don't have great cooling (at least the Intel ones didn't) I now have a M1 Max MBP 16, but gaming on Apple Silicon after 3 years is still pretty anemic.
I would agree with the above post, wait for the M3 release (which is likely happening at the Oct. 30 event)
You can play on GeForce Now, run on 4080 servers. I did play CP2077 on it at 120Hz HDR 4k maxed out.
There are many games, no need to split life between windows laptop just for gaming reason. I understand GFN is a subscription base, still better than buying a dedicated hardware just for gaming purpose.
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Anything will compare with anything else, but that's not really the question. Generally, if gaming drives a purchase, buy PC- much more bang for the buck and far more games too. Mac has plenty of potential but whether that will ever be realized for gaming is TBD... and will certainly NOT be realized by this time next week.
The headline feature- Ray Tracing- on the rumored new M3 has been on computers since at least 1986. I watched some ray traced demo on an Amiga in 1986. Hardware ray tracing has been in graphics cards for at least a decade if not much longer. It possibly showing up on some Macs next week is great... but any games to take advantage of it are probably well out into the future when enough of these Macs with it are in place so developers can make some money for supporting it.
Meanwhile, even relatively cheap gaming PCs sold years ago will have it and lots of other graphics card features in support of a gigantic pool of AAA games and not quite AAA games.
Another word with many meanings is "casual" (gaming). Apple games can certainly be called "casual" now. But you may mean you want to play AAA games when you have down (thus casual) time. If you want to casually play the big games, buy PC. If you want to play "lite" games, there's plenty of those on Apple now.
Apple fans will of course push the offerings of the favorite company. But if you are serious about gaming, go PC... and check back in a few years when we can see if this time's push about gaming actually delivers some tangible AAA games. Gaming pushes are not new to Apple. Usually, it's a lot of talk but then limited follow through. Could this time be different? Yes. Or no. TBD.
The headline feature- Ray Tracing- on the rumored new M3 has been on computers since at least 1986. I watched some ray traced demo on an Amiga in 1986. Hardware ray tracing has been in graphics cards for at least a decade if not much longer. It possibly showing up on some Macs next week is great... but any games to take advantage of it are probably well out into the future when enough of these Macs with it are in place so developers can make some money for supporting it.
Meanwhile, even relatively cheap gaming PCs sold years ago will have it and lots of other graphics card features in support of a gigantic pool of AAA games and not quite AAA games.
Another word with many meanings is "casual" (gaming). Apple games can certainly be called "casual" now. But you may mean you want to play AAA games when you have down (thus casual) time. If you want to casually play the big games, buy PC. If you want to play "lite" games, there's plenty of those on Apple now.
Apple fans will of course push the offerings of the favorite company. But if you are serious about gaming, go PC... and check back in a few years when we can see if this time's push about gaming actually delivers some tangible AAA games. Gaming pushes are not new to Apple. Usually, it's a lot of talk but then limited follow through. Could this time be different? Yes. Or no. TBD.
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Using a subscription service would allow you to even play PC games on a first generation Macbook Air. I have been dual booting to Bootcamp on a 2020 iMac and planned to eventually just get a dedicating PC for gaming but maybe subscription based gaming is better.
I still bought a dedicated gaming laptop for downtime when traveling as most public wifi like hotels do not have anywhere near the bandwidth and latency for remote/streaming gaming. I guess if the OP is going to be sitting on his couch at home, it might be decent. They should still wait for the M3 release as they can either buy the latest or the M2 will start to be heavily discounted as the M1's are currently.
lol not even close, m2 ultra doesn't even touch last gen high end 3000 series in raw benchmarks, the battery on apple silicon goes out the window when playing triple A titles so it doesn't even have a efficiency advantage.
edit: just saw you said casual gaming, if thats the case than yeah the apple silicon should be fine.
edit: just saw you said casual gaming, if thats the case than yeah the apple silicon should be fine.
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I'm kinda in the same boat. As a causal gamer, I'm looking forward to what the M3 has to offer. So I am going to wait for the event before I do anything. I'd also like to kill two birds with one stone and just get a Macbook Pro just to be able to play an occasional game if need be and also get back on the Mac OS side of things.
I don't need a laptop right away so I can bide my time a bit. If the M3 still is a bit lacking in that department, probably will go down to the local Walmart and just get a cheap-ish Windows gaming PC instead. Really want to try out Baldur's Gate 3 and really would like to see if the proposed M3 machines can easily take on the task of playing it or not.
I don't need a laptop right away so I can bide my time a bit. If the M3 still is a bit lacking in that department, probably will go down to the local Walmart and just get a cheap-ish Windows gaming PC instead. Really want to try out Baldur's Gate 3 and really would like to see if the proposed M3 machines can easily take on the task of playing it or not.
BG3 is one of those games that runs pretty well on my m1max mbp16. Nowhere near as nice as my 4090 but that’s expected. I’m sure the m3pro/max will be even better. I bought into the hype where people were using Apple’s modified WINE to run D4, but it’s an unstable stuttery mess
Agreed with the M3 release wait and see.
Considering Qualcomm's X Elite SoC announced this past week, its performance machine that of the M2 Pro, supposedly, is something to pontificate. Of course that SoC is for Windows 11 ARM-based computers, and will not be available in shipping products until Summer 2024.
Off that Macrumor's never featured an article on this at all. Then again when Apple funds you, its not surprising since it could affect switchers.
Note that even when comparing raw power if the M3 Pro hypothetically matches up to an rtx 40-series GPU in reality the performance will be much worse. Nvidia spends a lot of time and money on optimizing their drivers for specific games and working with devs.
Mac also has very few natively supported titles especially on the AAA end, meaning if you use translation layers like GPTK you will be also cutting your performance a lot. For example the M1 Max benched similar to the 3080 mobile but in actual games it performed only like a 3060 at best in native mac games and even worse than a 3050 through GPTK.
Mac also has very few natively supported titles especially on the AAA end, meaning if you use translation layers like GPTK you will be also cutting your performance a lot. For example the M1 Max benched similar to the 3080 mobile but in actual games it performed only like a 3060 at best in native mac games and even worse than a 3050 through GPTK.
It’s incredible what they are achieving on a per watt basis. However, make no mistake, if you can feed it the power, modern Nvidia and AMD dGPUs are still significantly strnonger.
If you take GPTK off the table and gaming in general, it’s a different story.
You will benefit from tightly optimized software with Apples GPU & OS. PCs can still beat them, but at a cost of Heat, Battery Life (Keep the charger on your hip) and Noise.
If you take GPTK off the table and gaming in general, it’s a different story.
You will benefit from tightly optimized software with Apples GPU & OS. PCs can still beat them, but at a cost of Heat, Battery Life (Keep the charger on your hip) and Noise.
I dunno about Apple silicon having superior battery life while gaming. BG3 kills my M1max mbp 16 in about a hour while gaming which is about the same as my Lenovo legion 7.
Yeah, gaming on Apple Silicon is not noticably more efficient than on comparable Windows devices. It's simply of matter of physics, even when you "only" consume 40W-50W of power when your battery is only 70Whr that comes out to less than 2 hrs of battery life. The advantages of ARM mainly come from lower idle consumption, which benefits "stop-and-go" tasks like general productivity a lot more than when you're running full tilt on both CPU and GPU like gaming.
Actually it can outperform even RTX 4090 in certain benchmarks like Pugetbench After Effects shown by Matthew Moniz.
You need an Intel Core i9-14900K with 4090 to barely outperform M2 Ultra and even then the GPU score is lower for whatever reason.
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I think the OP was taking about gaming not productivity benchmarks. Apple Silicon has really good accelerators for video processing. The think I'm miffed about the M3 series is that they still LACK an AV1 hardware encoder which is the future as it's royalty free.Actually it can outpeform even RTX 4090 in certain benchmarks like Pugetbench After Effects shown by Matthew Moniz.
You need an Intel Core i9-14900K with 4090 to barely outperform M2 Ultra and even then the GPU score is lower for whatever reason.
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The OP yes, but as you didn't notice I wasn't answering them. The person I answered to wrote "m2 ultra doesn't even touch last gen high end 3000 series in raw benchmarks" so they were not talking about gaming in that sentence.
since topic here was relevant to gaming didn't think I have to spell it out but sure, apple silicon is outstanding when comes to stuffs like geek bench and synthetics.