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M1 Pro/Max's GPU performance for gaming is quite poor.
- Thread starter sunny5
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This whole conversation has been litigated and re-litigated a thousand times and it’s frankly rather exhausting at this point.
@sunny5 My understanding is your position is essentially: M1 Max is disappointing for gaming because it seems to run games about the level of a 3060 mobile, and this is particularly bad because Apple compared it to 3080 mobile in their presentation.
It’s worth noting that Apple never mentioned gaming a single time in their entire presentation, as a precursor. And they compared it twice to 3080s, once where they showed it equally performant (but more efficient) compared to a low-watt 3080, and once where it was slower (but far more efficient) compared to a full-fat 3080 mobile. So it at least should be acknowledged what precisely the expectations that Apple set really were.
So far, basically every benchmark where the GPU is used for creative purposes has borne that out and more: in Blender, Affinity, video editing, etc. the M1 Max is a serious contender with the 3080 mobile, and more often than not surpasses it. The exception is GPU compute, presumably at least in part because the M1 offloads much of those types of workloads to the neural engine.
It’s essentially then in gaming that the M1 Max GPU appear to regularly underperform the 3080, but even there it should be noted: it matches the 3060 in highly unoptimized settings, and despite your initial claims it does it significantly more efficiently. Anandtech found the GPU drawing 68w at the absolute max, and the 3060 benchmarks that are commonly being referenced here are often cards drawing 95-130w. The lowest wattage 3060 draws something like 75w. So even if the M1 Max is only as performant as a 3060, it does that with fairly insane efficiency advantages.
Furthermore, on the (very, very few) games that are actually optimized for these GPUs (basically Baldur’s Gate and WoW), the benchmarks are frankly overwhelmingly positive, suggesting that when these GPU’s are given the same sort of love that developers regularly give Nvidia then the M1 Max is indeed a match for the 3080 mobile even in gaming, while being far, far more efficient.
Should one buy a Mac for a “gaming laptop”? No. The ecosystem and developer support simply isn’t there, and one doesn’t buy a gaming laptop to play 2-3 optimized games. But @sunny5, if your contention is that there’s something inferior about the Max GPU in terms of raw power, then I can only assume you’re being insincere or not looking at the evidence we have available. All evidence suggests this is an astonishingly performant and efficient GPU. You keep arguing that on Windows the 3080 “does both” productivity and gaming. It’s true! So does the M1 Max, strictly speaking. If the Apple GPUs are better than 3080’s for productivity but worse for gaming, while the 3080’s are better for gaming but worse for productivity, it’s not clear to me why that should reflect badly on the M1 Max?
@sunny5 My understanding is your position is essentially: M1 Max is disappointing for gaming because it seems to run games about the level of a 3060 mobile, and this is particularly bad because Apple compared it to 3080 mobile in their presentation.
It’s worth noting that Apple never mentioned gaming a single time in their entire presentation, as a precursor. And they compared it twice to 3080s, once where they showed it equally performant (but more efficient) compared to a low-watt 3080, and once where it was slower (but far more efficient) compared to a full-fat 3080 mobile. So it at least should be acknowledged what precisely the expectations that Apple set really were.
So far, basically every benchmark where the GPU is used for creative purposes has borne that out and more: in Blender, Affinity, video editing, etc. the M1 Max is a serious contender with the 3080 mobile, and more often than not surpasses it. The exception is GPU compute, presumably at least in part because the M1 offloads much of those types of workloads to the neural engine.
It’s essentially then in gaming that the M1 Max GPU appear to regularly underperform the 3080, but even there it should be noted: it matches the 3060 in highly unoptimized settings, and despite your initial claims it does it significantly more efficiently. Anandtech found the GPU drawing 68w at the absolute max, and the 3060 benchmarks that are commonly being referenced here are often cards drawing 95-130w. The lowest wattage 3060 draws something like 75w. So even if the M1 Max is only as performant as a 3060, it does that with fairly insane efficiency advantages.
Furthermore, on the (very, very few) games that are actually optimized for these GPUs (basically Baldur’s Gate and WoW), the benchmarks are frankly overwhelmingly positive, suggesting that when these GPU’s are given the same sort of love that developers regularly give Nvidia then the M1 Max is indeed a match for the 3080 mobile even in gaming, while being far, far more efficient.
Should one buy a Mac for a “gaming laptop”? No. The ecosystem and developer support simply isn’t there, and one doesn’t buy a gaming laptop to play 2-3 optimized games. But @sunny5, if your contention is that there’s something inferior about the Max GPU in terms of raw power, then I can only assume you’re being insincere or not looking at the evidence we have available. All evidence suggests this is an astonishingly performant and efficient GPU. You keep arguing that on Windows the 3080 “does both” productivity and gaming. It’s true! So does the M1 Max, strictly speaking. If the Apple GPUs are better than 3080’s for productivity but worse for gaming, while the 3080’s are better for gaming but worse for productivity, it’s not clear to me why that should reflect badly on the M1 Max?
I’m bashing your motivations.
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In terms of retro pc games, I’d have to play around with utm more. But until then have a video of half-life on an iPad
I can’t imagine that the M-Series would have too much difficulty running an XP vm for older games when it runs modern games well enough through a translation layer.
Although if you really want to experience Deus Ex again, just look around. We’re living the dystopia.
Lmao what?
Among other things I frequently use Cubase pro on a two 34” setup with Apollo and I don’t even bother running audio side on the Mac.
All your statements are vapor.
Without proofs isn't proving anything. Also, being efficient does not mean the performance is great. Both are different things.
Where does it even say that RTX mobile is bad for productivity? Do you even know how many Nvidia friendly software out there?
Does "you" mean entire people where you come from? You said "You can't ignore that". So I must be the entire people by your own definition.
He described what the proof was as have I as have multiple people, you just ignored it because it is inconvenient for you. You haven’t addressed it.
He didn’t say it was bad, he said the M1 Max can better. Again you’re not engaging honestly.
I actually program Nvidia GTX/RTX GPUs for work. I know what they can do. So I would argue it would depend on the workload which can be better - especially taking into consideration the dedicated hardware for different things each posses.
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I dont need to because you didnt provide enough info.
This will probably be my only reply since I’m not convinced you’re really interested in a discussion here. The “proofs” are littered across the past 7 pages of this thread, and a 10 minute hunt through these forums would find you links to all the real-world productivity benchmarks for the M1 Max I referred to. Several people have linked you to examples where the M1 Max matches or outperforms the 3080 mobile in creative tasks, and as far as I can tell you’ve simply ignored those examples.
Also, I did not say that RTX 3080 mobile is bad for productivity. To the contrary it’s incredible, a bleeding edge card that allows laptop-based creative workflows that would have been unthinkable not that long ago. What I said was that for several common creative workflows, the M1 Max appears to be faster even than the 3080. And my implication, I suppose, is that at least for some people an “all-purpose” (gaming + productivity) laptop that is the absolute best for productivity but only above average for gaming might be preferable to an “all-purpose” laptop that is the best for gaming but slightly outmatched for productivity. I don’t feel like that’s a crazy conclusion?
Again, you still dont have proofs to support your claim. Word is not a proof. M1 Max is fast only on productivity, not gaming.
I think the problem is the user base that is too small. Not enough money to be made, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Everyone here has provided reams of info … what is it you require? We’ve explained in detail how the different GPUs are different architecturally and we’ve shown the benchmarks on the few programs that are actually optimized for the M1 GPU where it does indeed come close, match, or exceed the mobile 3080. You’ve ignored that and declared them to be “just words”.
Apple claimed that it has mobile RTX 3080's performance and yet the gaming proves that it only can reach mobile 3060. Do you have info to disagree?
the money for couple of years are now on mobile platform...the biggest profit there it is nowI mean the smart choice is just to buy a Mac and a console.
Literally every argument that can be levied against the Mac from the PC perspective can be levied at the PC from a console perspective.
Console gaming is where the money (and therefore developer effort) is.
Careful, you are about to receive a „hysteric laugh emoticon“! It’s a permanent mark
The Mac gaming landscape won’t ever change. It’s been this way for as long as I’ve been alive. Three architecture changes including the most ubiquitous one that it shared with PCs.
The only reason these threads happen is either someone is desperate to prove the superiority of their PC, or there’s the hopeless optimist.
if he did know the difference he wouldnt talk this way...again why waste time talking with him ?!
Again, nvidia and amd have a lot of different gpu and dGpu...and apple in 1 year surpass from raw power perspective around 80% of them. Nobody knows the future , but i bet in 5 years we will start to see a lot of AAA ported to mobile platform and of course to the mac , macs besides the HW now has the advantage of the ios platform being both on NON-x86 platform
Comparable to 40W 3060 from the comparisons I've seen and done on mine while it has further power limit options of 70W, 80W, 100W and even beyond on other laptop models.
you cant have entire people without 1 person....the definition of entire is based on that...so your reply has no sense...i also have ignored it since 2010..
And profits just show that a lot more is ignoring the console/pc gaming...since the biggest profit now its on mobile gaming
Again people, we can speak about M1 max/pro gaming just ignoring this user
We thank him for this thread of course
It’s like you guys have never been trolling arguments before. The basic principle is to make a dubious argument (preferably mocking in tone), and ignore/belittle any arguments to the contrary while begging the question.
You know, in the end, that is fine, good even. There is critique that these also lack latest anti-aliasing and raytracing - all true. But this means they are ranked by the standards of current gen gaming-GPU's and sit in low-middle of it. This means you can, depending of the optimization, play new games on them with at least medium-settings @30fps, which is enough for most non-enthusiastic players. Comparing, games made for Nintendo Switch will run with these easily. Just performance in mind, Apple is now a valid low-mid-tier gaming platform. In coming years when the M2 or even M3 come about - while consoles are still staying on the current gen, and Unity3d/Unreal etc. start to compile to Metal with higher effeciency... macs will sit nicely at least equally in the same ballpark with whatever Nvidia and ATi can cook up.
So yeah, macs are in the game. It is a valid entry to the league of AAA gaming platforms. Still ranking towards the bottom, but keeping well within the range of current gen gaming platforms. So, not too shabby for an entry. You can play with them ok, limited but ok, just ... silly to buy these for that purpose. More bang for buck for gaming through other hardware, just wait for m2/3
Myself with gaming days well behind me and finding games like Skyrim looking pretty damn good... if I can get elite dangerous to run through Parallers at 30fps and recgonice my joystics, that would be all I want. Or that new Star Wars:Squadrons! Yeaah. That might plausible. I'm excited!