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How's gaming on the new MacBook?

brandonwelch11

brandonwelch11

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 13, 2014
4
0
Hong Kong
So I've been doing lots of extensive tests with my MacBook Pro 13 inch non-retina display model (mid 2012) and noticed the things I do on my Mac aren't really compromised if I were to buy a MacBook. My only worry with buying the new MacBook is the fact that it uses the Intel Core-M processor. It's a great processor and all but I want to know if the MacBook will reduce its performance when it comes to gaming. I play games like X-Plane, Mafia II, and Counter-Strike Global Offensive which all play very well on my MacBook Pro.

Now I did some research on benchmarks between my MBP and the rMB and found that theres not a huge difference between both my current Mac and the new MacBook.

So my big question is... Will the MacBook cutback performance while playing these highly intensive games due to the fact that theres no fan? And if you have done some intensive gaming let me know what games you played and tell me the FPS, the settings you played on, and if it cutback performance in the middle of gameplay as well as the temperature.

Benchmarks:

MacBook 2015
Cinebench score - 18-19 FPS (208 cb for processor)
Heaven score - 14FPS
Geekbench - 2500 for Single and 5000 for Multi

MacBook Pro Non-Retina Mid 2012
Cinebench score - 15FPS (250 cb for processor)
Heaven score - 15FPS
Geekbench - 2700 for Single and 5300 for Multi
 
For the sake of running synthetic benchmarks, the Core M's 5300 GPU is about the same as the HD 4000 in your 2012 MBP; the cooling situation may mean however that it cannot sustain the same load over a longer period of time - on the MBP the fan kicks in to keep the chip going, on the rMB the processor throttles in order to manage heat when needed (thus performance suffers).

What needs to be checked is how big of a slowdown there is when the chip throttles, whether a game becomes unplayable or not.
 
crsh1976 said:
For the sake of running synthetic benchmarks, the Core M's 5300 GPU is about the same as the HD 4000 in your 2012 MBP; the cooling situation may mean however that it cannot sustain the same load over a longer period of time - on the MBP the fan kicks in to keep the chip going, on the rMB the processor throttles in order to manage heat when needed (thus performance suffers).

What needs to be checked is how big of a slowdown there is when the chip throttles, whether a game becomes unplayable or not.
Click to expand...

Also after checking some benchmarks I found that the MacBook runs about 20C cooler than a MacBook Pro under these conditions and shouldn't require any cooling... What do you think?

MacBook Pro runs at 85C
MacBook runs at 65C
 
That's good news; the threshold on the chip is apparenly 95 degrees C, worst case scenario I suppose the system shuts down when it reaches this ceiling and cannot cool down otherwise?
 
It runs cooler because it throttles down much earlier. There's a full thread in the forum just on gaming on the MBr, and well, you won't be doing anything spectacular on it.
 
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