Apple M2, M2 Pro, and M2 Max SoCs
- Thread starter iMacmatician
- Start date
DavidGraham
Veteran
But this is a native Apple Silicon port running on Metal 3 API, I don't think much more optimizations could be done here.
That depends on how much optimizations was done on the port. The optimizations done on PC games (both in game or in driver) are sometimes quite crazy.
Personally I think this is a huge problem for Apple going into serious gaming market (if they actually wanted to do so). What they need is a well optimized Unreal engine to kickstart things, but even so it can take quite some time and without a significant market it can be difficult.
[EDIT] Of course it's also quite possible that M1 Ultra/Max aren't that balanced for gaming (e.g. they could be too much bandwidth/computation but too little rasterization/texturing).
Doubt thats a concern for anyone looking for a gaming laptop.
What do you mean? The whole purpose of a gaming laptop is to game and content creation. And doing that portable without the need of carrying a huge power adapter with you and without relying on having AC everywhere is a huge deal. People just accept that gaming laptops always have to be plugged in because it has always been that way.
I mean, Macbooks do not even loose much of their performance when unplugged, that's pretty crazy.
RTX laptops suck in that regard. And I know because I actually have one. It sucks that the battery dies in just 1 hour while gaming/3d rendering/content creation and no progress has been made in the last couple of years. I refuse to buy an inferior product when there's better things available. And RTX laptops are inferior.
I will only buy a new laptop when RTX cards offer the same efficiency as a M-based Macbook. Jensen has to work with Intel to create a powerful and power efficient SoC. I will rock my Y540 until that day comes...
If your main intentions are gaming, then a mac isnt an option to begin with for obvious reasons, performance and compatibility. Both of which are the main priorities for a gamer. The only advantage the mac has for the gamer is battery life, and that i dont think is a true concern for the gamer looking for a gaming-laptop, hence my comment.
Unplugged performance/battery life is indeed unbeatable, however i still do not think that is the main priority for most gamers looking for a gaming laptop.
Just saying RTX laptops (or gaming laptops in general you mean?) are inferior just because of battery life isn't that good of an argument to the whole product comparison overall. Unfortunately theres more to it than battery life.
I own a G15 3070m/5800h/32GB/nvme laptop, cost me just under 1500usd last year. To match that in raw performance that would be impossible with any mac. Thats not talking compatibility, you just want Windows when your main intrest is gaming. For content creation the mac does weigh more against a windows laptop, however i doubt for the 1500usd ive could have gotten equal performer to the G15 in that department, thats macbook Air product line at that price (atleast here).
Edit: laptops can be quite power efficient if you want to, some tweaking can do wonders.
Ah I see. Yeah I agree with you that Macbooks are not an option for gamers and that gaming laptops are the obvious choice due to a variety of reasons.
Still, gaming laptops have to catch up to Apple in terms of efficiency. We are not talking about 15% better battery life, we are talking about an entirely different league and gaming laptops are expensive. If I buy a gaming laptop for that much money, I expect it to be competitive in every aspect compared to other laptops on the market, including Apple.
I don't have any hope that the 4000 laptop series will catch up to Apple in terms of efficiency, but oh well. My current laptop still serves me well and I can wait. Still, the itch of buying something new is definately there.
Yea, theres truth in that, windows laptops are far from as efficient. I only paid 1500usd for my 3070m/5800h/32gb G15 so im good, the same money would have gotten me a macbook air last year (which was 13 inches i believe). Same money, better in every regard aside battery.
CEMU has been ported to macOS (albeit with Vulkan wrapper), so you can try out Wii U games. Gaming on macOS is moving slowly but more and more games will become available.
M1 sets the base line for gaming going forward and with M2 (+35-49% GPU performance, 50% higher memory bandwidth) performing much better the future is looking great.
M1 sets the base line for gaming going forward and with M2 (+35-49% GPU performance, 50% higher memory bandwidth) performing much better the future is looking great.
First M2 Max benchmark scores appear to leak on Geekbench
If the scores are legit, they show fairly modest gains compared to the M1 Max.
arstechnica.com
Presumably M2 Max Geekbench results.
Have in mind that the biggest generational leap will come from the high-efficiency cores being beefed up and the GPU being much faster if M1 to M2 is anything to go by. Going from the 24-core GPU M1 Max to the 40-core M2 Max would net you an 86% increase in performance. Not bad.
| SoC | GPU cores | TFlops |
| M1 Max | 24 | 7.8 |
| M1 Max | 32 | 10.4 |
| M2 Max | 32 | 11.52 |
| M2 Max | 40 | 14.4 |
Got to upgrade to keep your iCool Street Credentials! You don't want to not be considered cool.
Death sentence in the Apple world.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
It's a percentage so you can't discern tell if these are upgrades. E.g. if there were 2m Intel Mac users and those people still exist but now there are 2.1m new ARM Mac users who have realised they can game on this SoC, you're going to see the same percentage change.
Percentages: not as useful as you think.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Well, 50% of all Mac that play games on their Mac through Steam. Hell, I'd be surprised if 50% of all Macs even have Steam installed.
Makes sense that gamers and businesses would want to upgrade their Mac ASAP. Bit of a harder case to make for mom or pop that use it mostly for mail and simple spreadsheets (like home budgeting) and aren't too concerned about having the latest and greatest to show off.Regards,
SB
There is like zero incitament to upgrade to M1 or M2 for gaming because barely anything is Apple Silicon optimised, so it runs through Rosetta 2. Energy savings on the other hand and battery life (if it's a notebook) have probably "converted" more users.Well, 50% of all Mac that play games on their Mac through Steam. Hell, I'd be surprised if 50% of all Macs even have Steam installed.
Regards,
SB
However all developers surely have gotten an Apple Silicon machine by now which is sure to skew the data.
I see the newest Geekbench scores for M2 Max have it clocked at 3.68GHz and gives it a 2027 Single-Core Score and 14888 Multi-Core Score.