Agreed. The Mac Pro is a nice, machine for compact personal computer, but it's not a particularly fast one.
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Gaming Passing Us BY Now
- Thread starter Washac
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Agreed. The Mac Pro is a nice, machine for compact personal computer, but it's not a particularly fast one.
Battery life, thickness and weight are pretty much irrelevant to desktop gaming PCs (or Macs). I don't think anybody's really seriously saying they want a Mac laptop for high-end gaming because those gaming laptops are gigantic, heavy, specialized machines -- and if you want one of those, I think we can all assume you're gonna get an Alienware or whatever custom job the kids are buying these days.
I agree but it's just unfortunate for those of us who love the Mac OS and also love gaming. The wife and I have 15" models and they're good enough to run some good titles, but I'm going to buy a gaming laptop soon.
Here's hoping for Polaris 10 XT (and perhaps even Vega?) in the next iMacs. Apple might once again set a new standard in all-in-one gaming, as they did back in 2012 when they put a 680MX in the top end iMac (which is still pretty capable four years later).
As for the laptops: the 15" MacBook Pro's Radeon Pro 460 offers the most gaming performance you can fit in a 1.5 mm thin, 1.8 kg light 15" notebook while retaining decent battery life.
Yes but (and it's a big "but")... that laptop sells for $4000.00 Cdn, total price without AppleCare. Yikes!
Yes but (and it's a big "but")... that laptop sells for $4000.00 Cdn, total price without AppleCare. Yikes!
You can buy the 2399 USD base model and only upgrade the GPU for another 200 USD. That way you'll get the Radeon Pro 460 for 2599 USD, 3239 CAD or 2939 EUR which is okay I guess.
You can – If you're willing to give up everything that's great about the MBP.
That GTX 1060 equipped 14" MSI doesn't even get you half the MBP's battery life despite being 50 % thicker, nowhere near the same build quality or materials, mediocre speakers and a sub-par display, almost 10x slower flash storage, misses out on something like the Touch Bar, makes a lot more fan noise and its case gets much, much hotter on the outside despite being plastic.
It's also not 1.7 kg but 1.89 kg, which is a bit more than the larger MBP weighs. The power supply (which you'll want to bring with you, since battery life really isn't great) even weighs over 700 g, almost double the MBP's.
If you want a notebook primarily for gaming and not spend too much money, the MSI might be a good choice. However I strongly doubt anyone in the market for a new MBP would consider this an option.
I have the 14" Razer Blade with a GTX 1060, and have had zero issues with the battery life (because, you know, I can just plug it in most of the time). The massive increase in graphics horsepower is worth trading in all those other supposed benefits that the MBP has (esp. Touch Bar), and it's light enough that I don't need it to be any thinner or lighter. I really don't understand who the MBP is designed for anymore, do power users really expect to be able to do 10 hours of heavy graphics work like video editing while running on battery?
The 14" Razer Blade is a whole different story than the 14" MSI laptop we were talking about.
Razer is out of all PC manufacturers the only one that really comes close to Apple in terms of construction and build quality – their devices also are quite pricey.
Your 14" Razer Blade's more powerful GTX 1060 has one big downside over the MBP's Radeon Pro 460 though – it consumes a hell lot more power. That's why you'll be getting only about 4h of battery life for everyday tasks like browsing, where the 15" MBP gets 10h or even more.
Basically it comes down to what you value higher: graphics horsepower of battery life. There are other factors of course, like choice of OS or things like Touch Bar, screen size, ports, whatever – GPU performance vs battery life is the biggest differentiator.
The 1060 isn't used for web browsing though, all that simple stuff is run on the Intel integrated GPU (exactly the same as the MBP with macOS). Any time I really need the full power of my GPU, I'm in a location where I can plug my laptop in. As I said, I'd gladly trade some battery life for the ability to have a full-blown GTX 1060 when I need it, and I have a hard time believing that "pro" users would be any different.
Besides, the battery life is not terrible for simple web browsing tasks:
http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/razer-blade
7:45 for browsing over Wi-Fi is really quite respectable.
I'm referring to the tests conducted by notebookcheck.net, a quite reputable source with standardized testing procedures. They're getting about 4h out of the 14" Razer Blade, and out of the 15" MBP over 10h under same conditions.
Even if the Razer Blade does switch between dGPU and iGPU too, a difference of 150 % in battery life has to come from something, whatever it is.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-...016-2-9-GHz-460-Notebook-Review.195702.0.html
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Razer-Blade-2016-Notebook-Review.186751.0.html
EDIT: Your laptopmag.com test is the lower end Razer Blade with 1080p Display, which doesn't compare to the MBP's display in any way. So that's why they're getting 7:45h – impossible with the higher end QHD+ model.
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Nope, not at all.
If you're going to use a notebook solely or primarily for gaming, you won't be considering a MacBook in the first place.
Most people in the market for a MBP won't be willing to make massive compromises (be it battery life, weight, thickness or whatever) just to get better graphics performance.
The bold text is exactly my point. Anyone who purchases a computer with an apple logo on it, desktop or laptop, knows that gaming is an afterthought for apple. It's not like apple offers any option for this; it's either a poor-gaming mac or no mac at all. And game studios know that as well. Hence the thread's title 'Gaming Passing Us BY Now' is accurate.
But nothing has really changed... So I'm not sure the title is accurate.
You could have had this same thread years ago.
The games on macOS still come from Feral, Aspyr, VP etc... Nothing has changed there.
I completely disagree, but I guess because of Apple's design decisions I'm just no longer in the market for a MBP anymore. I get way more than 4 hours of battery life with my QHD+ Razer Blade, but again, the only time I really need (or use) the battery is when I'm sitting in an hour-long meeting. When I'm actually doing work on my laptop, I plug it in. This is really not a hassle, and I would gladly trade hours of battery life for having a system with a massive increase in graphics horsepower over the MBP. I've never understood the fascination or requirement that my laptop must be able to run on battery power all day while doing graphically-intensive work on the dGPU, because it's absolutely not for me. As a result, Apple lost my business with the follow-on effect that I won't be buying any of their other products anymore as well (e.g. no more iPhones etc).
A few projects from other studios were cancelled as well. Even from traditional mac-supporters like blizzard.
An interesting relevant article that shows how the situation has been lately.
It was bad before, but sadly it is even worse now.
Bottom line; I agree that nothing has changed from apple's side. But the rest of the world has moved a bit further so the gap widens.
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Just because a Mac wasn't built specifically for gaming (most PCs aren't), doesn't mean it's a poor gaming device...
Gaming isn't an afterthought with Macs – it's just one of many use cases.
You aren't seriously expecting Apple to make a dedicated gaming Mac, are you?
There was a time where (desktop) Macs were as powerful as PCs. For example, a 2008 Mac Pro with a GTX 285 was basically as good as you could get at the time, maybe the non-Xeon CPUs were a touch faster but the GTX 285 was the fastest GPU you could get at the time. So, while it might not have been designed as a gaming computer, it certainly could be used as one.
Apple doesn't make powerful computers anymore. A comparable Windows laptop (like the 14" Razer Blade) is just so much more powerful than the latest MBP from Apple, because their obsession/focus seems to be on things other than raw GPU power. So, while it might not be designed as a gaming computer, the fact the system is so anemic means you can't really play games on it if you wanted to (ignoring the fact that the availability of modern games is so poor on macOS as well).
PCs are built the way their owner wants - either they are gaming-capable or not. You can't seriously applause for the lack of options in the mac product line. Gaming used to be an afterthought for macs, now it's worse.
No gamer would seriously expect a mac with a proper GPU at this point. Just like no professional would seriously expect a mac that would be competitive to PC workstations. It's just not within apple's interests anymore.
Meanwhile...
In a fast-paced and evolving gaming market, all you have to do to hit the bottom is to stay still. Apple does exactly that.
I love the Mac OS but also love gaming. I also don't mind having only 3 hours of battery life on my laptop bc I can always be plugged in. Apple simply doesn't have an option for gaming and that's fine. I'ts just a shame bc I love airdrop, continuity, etc.
I mean the GPU situation was never amazing, but during the turn of the decade (2008-2012) they used to be a baseline GPU on all macs and options to upgrade to a half-decent one. The problem is that they didn't want the extra heat and failures that GPUs tend to have and just integrate it into one chip. Intel GPUs (and integrated GPUs) are generally garbage, and thus the baseline Mac's GPU power is barely enough to run the OS much less a modern real-time 3D game. If I could get a Polaris on a 13" MBP I'd probably would have stayed. Instead, I ended up leaving the Mac because they didn't make a machine GPU that support VR and just built myself a desktop with a 1080 and the performance is great.
I still like the Mac, but at this point it's basically turned into an iOS development machine with little to offer. If they release XCode for Windows, there's virtually no reason to keep the Mac around (except I occasionally miss OmniGraffle and Pixelmator).
Now if Apple wises up and realizes that with iOS they can target their mainstream all-in-one market, but then have their Macs target the professional/performance environment with strong hardware configurations I may come back. The problem is that they are trying to target the same audience as their iOS products (super easy to use no configuration computing) and it just doesn't make sense. Something they could try to do is get one of the first fully integrated computer memory systems with High-Bandwidth Memory 2 (similar to a game console or iOS hardware). That would be a bold move for computing and something that Apple could achieve with some potential huge performance benefits.
You can't really compare the 14" Razer Blade to the 15" MBP. While not much heavier, the Blade is significantly thicker, gets much lower battery life, has worse speakers, worse trackpad, not 4x TB 3, no Touch Bar, no Touch ID – if you don't care about all that, get the Blade, it's a nice machine. However, it obviously comes with tradeoffs.
The 15" MBP doesn't have to be (and never has been) the most graphics-performant notebook on the market. It however does pack the strongest mobile CPUs available (Kaby Lake wasn't available at launch), the fastest flash storage in any notebook, probably the best speakers in any notebook, and one of the best notebook displays. Also the Radeon Pro 460 really isn't bad at all. Overall it's quite a compelling machine and, to me, just the best package in it's class.
As for the desktops, let's see what the next iMacs bring once they arrive. Polaris 10 for sure – even Vega maybe?