MacBook Pro v. Xbox One v. PS4

[Fraser28]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to upgrade my MacBook Pro from the 2010 model to the 2014 model this summer/fall. I'll likely go with the most powerful 15" version.

The primary function is for work, web browsing, watching movies, etc. However, I'll also play games. Even my 2010 MacBook has been capable of playing games like Alan Wake, Dead Space, etc. It can't handle games like The Witcher 2, however. The 2014 model will obviously be able to handle The Witcher 2, but I'm hoping that my new computer will also be able to play new games that come out over the next three years (such as The Witcher 3) - not necessarily on the highest settings, but hopefully at least medium.

Could those of you who are very comfortable with specs and tech, compare the current most powerful MacBook Pro to the Xbox One and PS4? I'm assuming it is maybe like 80% as powerful as the Xbox One? What about a comparison of the rumored 2014 MacBook Pros to the new consoles?

Thanks so much.

 

[simon48]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to upgrade my MacBook Pro from the 2010 model to the 2014 model this summer/fall. I'll likely go with the most powerful 15" version.

The primary function is for work, web browsing, watching movies, etc. However, I'll also play games. Even my 2010 MacBook has been capable of playing games like Alan Wake, Dead Space, etc. It can't handle games like The Witcher 2, however. The 2014 model will obviously be able to handle The Witcher 2, but I'm hoping that my new computer will also be able to play new games that come out over the next three years (such as The Witcher 3) - not necessarily on the highest settings, but hopefully at least medium.

Could those of you who are very comfortable with specs and tech, compare the current most powerful MacBook Pro to the Xbox One and PS4? I'm assuming it is maybe like 80% as powerful as the Xbox One? What about a comparison of the rumored 2014 MacBook Pros to the new consoles?

Thanks so much.

This, isn't really a comparison you can make. What games you can play varies so much, I think you need to decide what type of gaming and what games you want to play.

You can't truly compare the specs between a console and a PC/Mac as the biggest boost for consoles is that the specs don't change so the devs can can do ridiculously good optimizing and learn the systems really well. If the specs of a PC/Mac were exactly the same as a console the devs would still get a lot more out of the console.

 

[disasterdrone]

It's also a very different experience playing pc or console versions.

 

[GSPice]

imho, there's almost no practical information that can be drawn from comparing these two machines.

 

[raptor402]

It is generally accepted that Macs, especially MBPs, are not exactly gaming machines.

Of recent, Apple has shown a trend of favouring iGPUs in their MBP lines. Despite that, models that do offer the dGPU (top 15" models) are still far too underpowered to play any real games; the GT 750M just doesn't cut it.

Compared to the Xbox One or the PS4, the present (and probably the coming) generation MBPs don't come even close in either CPU or GPU performance. Both consoles have dedicated 8GB GDDR5 memory shared between the CPU and the GPU. That means that these consoles can handle the exceedingly heavy textures that modern games are bringing. MBPs, however, are limited to 1GB of relatively slow GPU memory.

Taking all of this into consideration, it's quite obvious that the top level MBPs aren't even close to 80% of the performance of the consoles.

Regards
Raptor

 

[Fraser28]

Thanks for the replies so far. Though, I do find it surprising that no one thinks it is possible to make some broad comparisons. I realize that consoles will get more out of comparable specs, but how close are the MacBook Pro's specs to the Xbox One? Aren't those at least objective numbers that can be generally compared? Also, I mentioned Witcher 3 as an example. How do you think the newest and most powerful MacBook Pro would do with games like that (very graphics-intensive games)?

Edit: Thanks raptor402 for the comparison. Actually, the Xbox One has 8GB of DDR3 RAM, not GDDR5 - that's the PS4. So that makes a big difference (less power). Furthermore, the new MacBooks have 16 GB of DDR3 and 2 GB of GDDR5. So that component is actually more powerful than the Xbox One. Also, someone on NeoGaf had told me that the newest MacBook Pro computers are not far off from the Xbox one so that's why I estimated 80%.

 

[maflynn]

Apple and oranges (no pun intended).

Consoles are great at playing games, if that's what you want then get one. The MBP serves a different purpose and such you cannot compare it with consoles.

 

[simon48]

It is generally accepted that Macs, especially MBPs, are not exactly gaming machines.

Of recent, Apple has shown a trend of favouring iGPUs in their MBP lines. Despite that, models that do offer the dGPU (top 15" models) are still far too underpowered to play any real games; the GT 750M just doesn't cut it.

Compared to the Xbox One or the PS4, the present (and probably the coming) generation MBPs don't come even close in either CPU or GPU performance. Both consoles have dedicated 8GB GDDR5 memory shared between the CPU and the GPU. That means that these consoles can handle the exceedingly heavy textures that modern games are bringing. MBPs, however, are limited to 1GB of relatively slow GPU memory.

Taking all of this into consideration, it's quite obvious that the top level MBPs aren't even close to 80% of the performance of the consoles.

Regards
Raptor

The new rMBPs have 2GB of VRAM.

 

[raptor402]

The new rMBPs have 2GB of VRAM.

Thanks for pointing that out. I'm a bit outdated on the specs.

 

[Fraser28]

It is generally accepted that Macs, especially MBPs, are not exactly gaming machines.

Of recent, Apple has shown a trend of favouring iGPUs in their MBP lines. Despite that, models that do offer the dGPU (top 15" models) are still far too underpowered to play any real games; the GT 750M just doesn't cut it.

Compared to the Xbox One or the PS4, the present (and probably the coming) generation MBPs don't come even close in either CPU or GPU performance. Both consoles have dedicated 8GB GDDR5 memory shared between the CPU and the GPU. That means that these consoles can handle the exceedingly heavy textures that modern games are bringing. MBPs, however, are limited to 1GB of relatively slow GPU memory.

Taking all of this into consideration, it's quite obvious that the top level MBPs aren't even close to 80% of the performance of the consoles.

Regards
Raptor

Thanks raptor402 for the comparison. Actually, the Xbox One has 8GB of DDR3 RAM, not GDDR5 - that's the PS4. So that makes a big difference (less power). Furthermore, the new MacBooks have 16 GB of DDR3 and 2 GB of GDDR5. So that component is actually more powerful than the Xbox One. Also, someone on NeoGaf had told me that the newest MacBook Pro computers are not far off from the Xbox one so that's why I estimated 80%.

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Apple and oranges (no pun intended).

Consoles are great at playing games, if that's what you want then get one. The MBP serves a different purpose and such you cannot compare it with consoles.

Right, but as mentioned, I already have a PS4 and there are certain games that I would prefer to play on my MacBook Pro if possible.

 

[UBS28]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to upgrade my MacBook Pro from the 2010 model to the 2014 model this summer/fall. I'll likely go with the most powerful 15" version.

The primary function is for work, web browsing, watching movies, etc. However, I'll also play games. Even my 2010 MacBook has been capable of playing games like Alan Wake, Dead Space, etc. It can't handle games like The Witcher 2, however. The 2014 model will obviously be able to handle The Witcher 2, but I'm hoping that my new computer will also be able to play new games that come out over the next three years (such as The Witcher 3) - not necessarily on the highest settings, but hopefully at least medium.

Could those of you who are very comfortable with specs and tech, compare the current most powerful MacBook Pro to the Xbox One and PS4? I'm assuming it is maybe like 80% as powerful as the Xbox One? What about a comparison of the rumored 2014 MacBook Pros to the new consoles?

Thanks so much.

First of all, don't buy a computer with a NVIDIA card for gaming. ATI/AMD is making the GPU's for the Xbox One and PS4 so all next gen games will be optimised for ATI/AMD GPU's.

The PS4 GPU can do 1.84 TFLOPS while the 750m does only 0.8 TFLOPS. So the PS4 will be more powerful than a rMBP.

But this comparison isn't valid because you need alot more hardware on a Mac (or PC). This is because it's easy for a game developer to extract the maximum out of the hardware from a console, (there is only 1 configuration of an Xbox One or PS4, so game developers have a very easy time optimising their game for the given hardware. They can't do such optimisation for a PC or MAC)

So in conclusion, the rMBP is slower hardware wise. And the difference in performance is alot bigger than the gap of 1.84 TFLOPS and 0.8 TFLOPS suggests due excellent optimisation of games on the consoles.

 

[GSPice]

Furthermore, the new MacBooks have 16 GB of DDR3 and 2 GB of GDDR5. So that component is actually more powerful than the Xbox One.

After reading this statement, I'd recommend that you learn how both machines implement memory.

The MHz/GHz wars in the 90s are a bit of the same thing. There's a reason Apple never put up their CPU numbers the way PC manufacturers did.

Again, I'd recommend revisiting your conclusions. They're not what you think. There's no practical comparison.

 

[kelon111]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to upgrade my MacBook Pro from the 2010 model to the 2014 model this summer/fall. I'll likely go with the most powerful 15" version.

The primary function is for work, web browsing, watching movies, etc. However, I'll also play games. Even my 2010 MacBook has been capable of playing games like Alan Wake, Dead Space, etc. It can't handle games like The Witcher 2, however. The 2014 model will obviously be able to handle The Witcher 2, but I'm hoping that my new computer will also be able to play new games that come out over the next three years (such as The Witcher 3) - not necessarily on the highest settings, but hopefully at least medium.

Could those of you who are very comfortable with specs and tech, compare the current most powerful MacBook Pro to the Xbox One and PS4? I'm assuming it is maybe like 80% as powerful as the Xbox One? What about a comparison of the rumored 2014 MacBook Pros to the new consoles?

Thanks so much.

Apple does not make gaming laptops. You aren't making a fair comparison.

Why don't you just get a PS4 for gaming? It's simple to use and it's quite fast. The GPU in the PS4 is definitely a lot faster than the GT 750m in the highest end Mac laptop as well. Guess how much a PS4 costs? $399.99! You get a lot of bang for your buck.

Your 2010 MacBook Pro is fine for basic tasks so why don't you just put money to a PS4 now and buy another Mac laptop when yours dies?

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First of all, don't buy a computer with a NVIDIA card for gaming. ATI/AMD is making the GPU's for the Xbox One and PS4 so all next gen games will be optimised for ATI/AMD GPU's.

You forgot to mention that next gen CONSOLE ports will probably be optimized for AMD GPUs. Lots of games will still run fine on Nvidia cards (and even better sometimes).

 

[leman]

The new consoles actually have some rather good hardware for a change. As other have already pointed out, on paper the PS4 GPU is somewhat over two times faster than the 750M is the rMBP. The rMBP's CPU should be slightly faster than that of PS4 (which doesn't make any difference). In addition, console developers have closer access to the hardware and can optimise their games much better. The rMBP is an adequate gaming computer and will comfortably run any game currently on the market (as long as you are not expecting stelar performance at max settings) - but both new consoles will offer a better gaming experience.

P.S. Any midrange gaming PC will utterly destroy the consoles. So will the iMac with the 780M.