Good for gaming?

[jordanlp96]

im thinking about buying a MacBook (any kind) for myself, but was wondering which one I should buy. I don’t game heavy as such, I do most of my gaming on my Xbox, but I’m looking for a MacBook to play grand strategy games like Total War, and games that generally aren’t on Xbox.
I’ll probably use it for University work as well, but I have an iPad too so if it isn’t as portable (ie a MacBook Air) then it isn’t the end of the world.
I think the top two MacBook pro’s are out of my price range, but can you please vote on the poll and let me know which one is most suitable for not-so-hardcore gaming (graphics aren’t a big thing for me, I’ll happily play on medium) as I’ve mentioned I game mostly on my Xbox.

 

[Closingracer]

im thinking about buying a MacBook (any kind) for myself, but was wondering which one I should buy. I don’t game heavy as such, I do most of my gaming on my Xbox, but I’m looking for a MacBook to play grand strategy games like Total War, and games that generally aren’t on Xbox.
I’ll probably use it for University work as well, but I have an iPad too so if it isn’t as portable (ie a MacBook Air) then it isn’t the end of the world.
I think the top two MacBook pro’s are out of my price range, but can you please vote on the poll and let me know which one is most suitable for not-so-hardcore gaming (graphics aren’t a big thing for me, I’ll happily play on medium) as I’ve mentioned I game mostly on my Xbox.

Total war doesn't work on Mac OS I believe

 

[jordanlp96]

Total war doesn't work on Mac OS I believe

Huh that sucks, what games generally don’t run on Mac then? I’ve got a steam account with quite a few games I’d like to play.

 

[Strelok]

Huh that sucks, what games generally don’t run on Mac then? I’ve got a steam account with quite a few games I’d like to play.

Usually people run bootcamp to play games, but they generally don't really run that great. For gaming I just bought an old HP for about $85 and put a 1050Ti ($150) in there, it will run rings around pretty much any MacBook Pro when it comes to gaming. Might make more sense if this is only for gaming.

 

[riptidewahoo]

Don't do it unless you are planning to use a Thunderbolt eGPU.

 

[Falhófnir]

For any sort of reasonable gaming performance you’ll probably be wanting the dgpu equipped 15” pro (£2,349) even for total war titles (some of the few game titles that are available on macOS) you might get Empire running ok on an iGPU 13” but for anything more modern like Warhammer you will struggle. External thunderbolt gpu isn’t something I’d recommend as it’s very expensive on top of an already expensive computer.

 

[mario-64]

No Mac computer is ‘good’ for gaming. Some can play a few games though. If you’re looking for a good gaming system you must choose Windows

 

[jackoatmon]

omg if the main purpose is gaming do yourself a favour and get a p.c.

way way better gaming performance and literally 10 times the choice of games to play. only about a quarter of your steam games will work.

osx isn't rly a gaming friendly platform at all

 

[ZapNZs]

It's hard for us to rate the different models if you are only posting price but not the specs...

That said, the MacBook is completely unsuited in any configuration, leaving you with the MBA and MBP, both of which are far from optimal. The superior cooling of the touchbar MacBook Pros is arguably more desirable, and the 15-inch quad core CPU + dGPU (specifically, the higher spec 560) is obviously more desirable over the dual core + iGPU. If pricing is an issue, IMHO you will get a much better value by purchasing a lower spec Mac + a used Windows gaming laptop (for $1,000 USD, you can purchase a new gaming laptop with a 7700HQ and a dGPU that runs circles around the top-end 15-inch MBP in its gaming performance...and because Windows gaming laptops do not hold their value at all, you can get a used one for an insanely good deal.)

 

[TopShelf]

Ive had good experiences gaming, if you dont expect top of the line visuals.

Overwatch on bootcamp is solid and most games a year or two old on bootcamp.

Then on mac itself, most games that are made for mac, run well enough.

 

[whg]

Your list of choices is difficult to see what hardware hides behind the prices listed. If you insist to game on a MacBook, pick the 15" with the 560 GPU and install Windows with BootCamp. You my need to upgrade the graphics driver from:
https://www.bootcampdrivers.com
To have enough room for BootCamp and games, get at least the 512GB or even 1TB SSD.

 

[andy9l]

Build a PC for ~£1,000 and get massively - and I mean massively - better gaming performance.

Then buy a MacBook for work and life if you still need/want one.

Macs are not good for gaming. They use low-end or integrated GPUs (largely due to thermal constraints), and games are often badly ported to OS X.

You will be disappointed - and we don’t want that!