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Gaming on rMB 1.3 Processor
- Thread starter tech324
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Just to follow up, been enjoying StarCraft 2 so much and the performance on my MacBook that I went ahead and upgraded to the full game.
You missed the part where that was the HIGH END i7 MBA. The Core M is also roughly the same speed as the base model MacBook Air from last year, and is only slightly slower than the i5 MBA that was available at the start of this year.You missed all the threads where the performance has been stated many times to be that of a 2011 MBA?
You should probably wiki what a core M is
The simple fact is there's nothing "2011" about this computer, except for the webcam.
I play heroes on my 1.3 all the time. Works fine.Great, please then report.. would you try Heroes of the storm as well?
These ultra low power chips are curious. It would be interesting to see how they throttle. A rather large throttle spread i'm thinking: 1.1Ghz to 2.4ghz on mine.
Isn't this the sort of thing Anand tech is good for? Did they do a complete writeup on these yet?
Isn't this the sort of thing Anand tech is good for? Did they do a complete writeup on these yet?
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Can't give any specific comments on gaming on the rMB because I haven't tried any games on it yet and most likely won't. However just to put this talk about performance from 2011 into some perspective: My 1.3 rMB benches significantly higher than my 2010 i7 MacBook Pro. Not such a big deal except when you keep in mind that this MBP was the fastest laptop Apple had on the market, period, at that time.
So it's not like we're talking about a machine that has the specs of some mid range netbook from 5 years ago... if you want to compare it machines from the past, it's more fair to say it's faster than the fastest Apple laptop you could get 5 years ago.
So it's not like we're talking about a machine that has the specs of some mid range netbook from 5 years ago... if you want to compare it machines from the past, it's more fair to say it's faster than the fastest Apple laptop you could get 5 years ago.
I'll be honest, I use dedicated games machines, so owning the 1.2 it's gaming performance is really bad. I just find the performance not acceptable, nor did I ever find the MBa acceptable. Though like I said, others might find it fine, for me, it's simply not a gaming machine, it struggles at times under day to day takes. Great ultraportable, never a gaming option form.
The 2011 MBA i7 is actually a better machine depending on he tasks, there is very little 2015 performance in the rMB if you want to compare it to non M models. Hence why it gets compared to previous generations, and being. A ultraportable , MbA comparison is a very good one for people thinking of upgrading hire previous model.
So, you've gone from, "2011 tech" to "2015 tech that isn't a high end gaming rig". All without actually acknowledging the sleight of hand.
That's a meaningless statement. An XT from the '80s could be described the same way, depending on the tasks. especially when you don't even bother to mention these tasks.
What? This is the first Core M CPU lineup. It's absolutely a 2015 chip.
Another meaningless statement. Everything gets compared to things that came before it. What are we supposed to do, compare it to Macs that don't yet exist?
It just so happens (bringing us back to the mistaken claim that started this conversation) that you latched onto a bit of awful reporting when someone compared it to a 2011 MacBook Air. It was the top of the line MBA.
Consider if someone claimed the new MacBook Pros are bad because they are slower than the MacBook Pros from two years ago? But they were comparing the base model of today against the top end model of the older one? This is exactly as deceptive as that.
Given the MBA is apple best portable, maybe the retina MB should be being compared to it?? If someone wants to know how it stacks upto a i7 MBA, its 2011 equivalent, cause a 2015 MBA 2.2 i7 Spanks the 1.2 rMB . Is it that hard? Do you understand why it got compared to the 2011 MBA??, which is not a bad thing really. Think equivalent to, every apple product released is compared to the previous generation. Owww wait, what core M Apple product can we compare the rMB to???? Bingo! The MBA, but as its not a Core M, lets see how it compares.... hence as good as a top end 2011 MBA, and close to a base 2015 i5 is your tasks do not require an i5.
Research Core M, Im not going to waste my time explaining why someone should get an i7 or i5 instead of the core M. Its not like gaming can push a system at its CPU/GPU limits for extended periods.... geez!
Like the Mac mini? How dare we compare, and conclude the newer one is worse! yeah, deceptive...
it is not deceptive, you have a choice of CPUs in the range of apple products, they all compare to each other in terms of processing power. A 2015 core M is equivalent to a 2011 MBA i7 , if i had 2011 i7 MBA, was thinking of upgrading, the 2015 base MBA is not an option is it?? Though knowing the rMB is equivalent, and much more portable, I would want to know I would get similar performance.
The rMB's a new product though. It's not like they replaced the Air with it so I dunno, if I were an owner of an Air I wouldn't be looking at it as a progression in the Air range to "upgrade" to in the first place. Also, it's probably a bit misleading to say the Core M is the equivalent to an MBA i7 from 2011. It carries the implication that using the rMB would be exactly like the Air from 4 years ago which isn't quite the case - the built in storage on the rMB is extremely fast, as fast as the very latest MacBook Pro was until just one month ago when it got a refresh. No laptop from any manufacturer in 2011 had disk speeds this fast - and the zippiness that comes along with it makes a huge difference to general use even if the CPU isn't the fastest around.
In any case, it's pretty clear that the Core M is what it is. If anyone has gaming on their list of priorities, they should be thinking carefully and getting some real world results for games they're into before considering a rMB. It's pretty far from being a machine anyone would look at for gaming, even if it will handle it at a basic level.
When it comes to innovation, the Core M was never about upping the ante in speed anyway. It was all about bringing enough power to the table to smoothly run a full desktop OS, with never seen before low power consumption and impressive enough thermal performance to not need active cooling. If Apple had decided against designing the rMB around the Core M and instead just brought a retina display to the Air, it would have meant losing many hours of battery life. Or having to make it fatter and heavier to squeeze in more battery. Or both. And hey maybe even a louder bigger fan too. In that case then yes, _everybody_ would be able to point at the "new Air" and say well look at that, it's a step backwards from what we had before... sure we got a nicer display but I'm outraged that I used to get 11 hours of battery and now I only get 7 etc etc. Probably not everyone - some people would have been happy enough to get retina at some tradeoff. But we all know how people get about these things, any perception of a backwards step in an existing model series never goes over well. So sure, it's not totally pointless to look at how things compare across the broader product range (including the past few years) to get an idea of what you're dealing with, but I wouldn't think of things only in those terms.
You make a very good point. Benchmarks are out there for people who want to make comparisons, my rMB performs exceptionally well and shows how tech has moved on, I compare it to tasks on my MBP 2012, and its much much slower, but its an ultraportable. I actually bought the rMB cause my friend has a 2011 MBA i7, and I was happy with the perfomance that was still achieving in 2015. I got the original MBA, and the rMB has the same sacrifices, though thankfully with tech having moved on, it can handle everyday task without issues.
I would never game on a rMB, sure you can, i just find it to be subpar, and anyone that wanted a portable machine that you also could game on, the 13 rMBP is a much better machine. To the ones that do game on rMB, enjoy.
Here's an idea. Why don't you take a 4 cylinder car, remove the radiator and then see how fast you can drive it.
That is essentially what you are wanting to do with this thing lol. It was never meant to be a gaming device.
So? Apparently, people dont care what it was designed for but what it will handle and how well.
A four cylinder car without a radiator can handle going around a race track
not very fast, and the question that should be asked is, how long will it last. You can also run a rMB as a server for you business, video editing suite etc etc..... Not recommended, though it can "handle" it, up to the user how well, based on their expectations.
One thing I have learned in my time on MR, people's expectations on what is a gaming machine are lower.
My only recommendation to Mac owners, heat kills components, it's why I stopped using MBPs for gaming.
You make a good point. That is sort of what I was leaning towards with my response. People spend $1300+ dollars on a laptop that is not meant to be graphically gamed on and then want to game on it. They are going to run their laptop into the ground doing that.
If people were really hell bent on gaming on the rmb, they should install steam and just use steam stream to put all the heavy processing on a more powerful computer in their house and that way they aren't maxing out their rmb. Just sayin
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Yeah agreed. After many many years of building systems, the one that lasted the longest without any issues was a water cooled one. With the components being cool, it's the most stable system I have had. I killed one MacBook Pro is less than 3 months of heavy gaming, was one of the ones that would black screen cause the gpu overheated.
If someone really wants to game, at least re paste the cpu/gpu, the stock effort is awful . If people are not comfortable , get AppleCare, in three years parts will die if you game on it, that is from my personal experience.
Tell that to my late 2008 MBP which is used most of the time to play TF2, Minecraft, or Gerry's Mod by my son.
Yes, the fans kick into high gear, especially with Minecraft, but it's 6 years old and still kicking.
Your son is a hardcore gamer? 4-6 hour sessions daily? I doubt it. Though thanks for trying to disprove that heat kills electronics cause x machine is used by y person. I have a 2009 mbp, it's also still working, having survived some light gaming
He's an admin on Mineplex.com and has built about 30GB in Minecraft worlds, but keep digging; I love reading uninformed comments from people who have zero idea what they're talking about.Your son is a hardcore gamer? 4-6 hour sessions daily? I doubt it. Though thanks for trying to disprove that heat kills electronics cause x machine is used by y person. I have a 2009 mbp, it's also still working, having survived some light gaming
Cmon, if your macbook died after few months of gaming, it was faulty one, no way any hardcore gaming should kill well built and not somehow faulty notebook in 3 months...
I believe it was a 2010 model. If you google MacBook pro black screen of death, there is lots of info around the GPUs failing.
People can game more in three months that an average laptop in its life span, especially with games like wow etc...
Though like I said, its personal millage, from all my years of building PCs and gaming etc, the computers that have had the least issues were ones that were well cooled. When laptops crash / shut down cause the GPU/CPU have shut down due to thermal overload, constant abuse like that does impacts its longevity.