I think the unrealistic dream would be having AAA gaming ambitions but expecting people to buy an MBP or Studio to achieve mid-level graphics performance. For the same price as an MBP you can get an MBA and a 4060 laptop right now, nobody who wants to game on Mac is going to pay $1000 - $3000 extra just for mid-to-lower-upper level graphics capacity. Baseline model has to be much better or games just won’t get enough sales to make Macs an attractive platform.
Good comment, especially on the unrealistic re-framing.
Personally I want game support on Mac but I don’t really care about top of the line, I just want 60fps 1080p in games currently only playable on Windows.
Math on MBP = MBA ($1000) + 4060 ($~1,200?) laptop seems off though, based on my recent shopping of a 4060 laptop. MBP 14 starts at $1,200 doesn’t it? I recently surrendered and bought a Windows laptop because I really wanted to play Elden Ring, after only using Mac happily for 20 years. (CONFIRMED: Windows is still garbage, though the gaming is good.)
Bump everything down a model and it would be nicer…
M3 = 4060 (a $1000-or-less machine)
M3 Pro = 4070 (a $2000 machine)
M3 Max = 4080 (a $3000 machine)
M3 Ultra = 4090 (a $4000 machine)
Then you might as well bump M3 = 5090ti.
Lets be realistic here, instead of just making up unrealistic dreams.
I think the unrealistic dream would be having AAA gaming ambitions but expecting people to buy an MBP or Studio to achieve mid-level graphics performance. For the same price as an MBP you can get an MBA and a 4060 laptop right now, nobody who wants to game on Mac is going to pay $1000 - $3000 extra just for mid-to-lower-upper level graphics capacity. Baseline model has to be much better or games just won’t get enough sales to make Macs an attractive platform.
Good comment, especially on the unrealistic re-framing.
Personally I want game support on Mac but I don’t really care about top of the line, I just want 60fps 1080p in games currently only playable on Windows.
Math on MBP = MBA ($1000) + 4060 ($~1,200?) laptop seems off though, based on my recent shopping of a 4060 laptop. MBP 14 starts at $1,200 doesn’t it? I recently surrendered and bought a Windows laptop because I really wanted to play Elden Ring, after only using Mac happily for 20 years. (CONFIRMED: Windows is still garbage, though the gaming is good.)
Even 4050 laptop has better FPS than m2 max in Witcher 3, according to notebookcheck.
I don’t know enough of hardware to say that m3 max matching 4080 laptop or god forbid 4080 desktop is impossible but it’s a stretch
Comment seems very vague. “Has better FPS” as in…significantly better? “Better” unspecified could be like 2fps.
Also there are outlier games that don’t fit the pattern of other comparisons, when comparing other hardware (like AMD to Intel etc).
M2 Max: 83 FPS according to
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-16-2023-Review-M2-Max-challenges-GeForce-RTX-3080-Ti.694175.0.html
4050 Laptop: 158 FPS according to
https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-Witcher-3-Notebook-Benchmarks.143187.0.html
Test conditions for both: 1920x1080 High Graphics & Postprocessing (Nvidia HairWorks Off)