MBP for (light) gaming?

[helbonikster]

Hello, I am planning on getting a current gen MacBook Pro. I will mostly be using it for basic computing (web surfing etc), but I also enjoy playing games such as hearthstone and numerous games from my steam library. Mostly indie games I've picked up through humble bundles.

I'm pretty sure I'll be getting the 13 inch with the base 2.6 i5 processor, but I'll probably upgrade to 16gb of ram.

My question is how well can this machine play games? I have no idea how the iris graphics compare with the nvidia and amd cards that most games recommend.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[GameFreak348]

Dont underestimate it, I play Battlefield 4 and 3 on this, 800x600 for 50 fps, on 720p you will get like 34 fps. The Iris 5100 is really good. I played Far Cry 3 on 800x600 low and textures set to high and I got 45 Fps average

 

[Icehawk]

I'm sure Iris could play Hearthstone fine. Blizzard is very forgiving in terms of hardware. My mid-2009 13" MBP can play Hearthstone on medium. The other games you play. Can always google 'em. "(gmae name) Iris graphics" and see what pops up.

 

[blooperz]

800x600?!?! how do you even play that

 

[saudor]

the iris pro 5100 in that MBP is comparable to the GT 630. at least in terms of benchmarks. Basically half the speed of a radeon 6770 and still fall short or even the radeon 7570.

That being said, the GT 330m in my mbp is half of the Iris GPU and i still gamed fairly well on it. Diablo3 for instance, runs at 30 fps @ 1080p low-medium. 50fps @ medium at 1440x900

 

[helbonikster]

Thanks for the replies. I'm pretty sure I want the 13 inch which to my knowledge does not offer the iris pro graphics. If I were to be hindered in playing light games then I would consider the 15 inch, but it sounds like it shouldn't be much of a problem.

I just prefer a smaller form factor.

 

[ELPresidente720]

I do light to moderate gaming on my rMBP without issues. Team Fortress 2, Civilization V, X-Com (also on my iPhone... love that damn game), some EVE Online for a while there... I haven't plugged in my "gaming" PC in a year or so because I haven't had to.

Granted I do have a discrete graphics card, but those games will all benchmark well with the Iris 5100. And do get the 16 GB of RAM - it's worth it.