My Extremely Scientific MacBook Pro Benchmark — Years in the Making
First of all, please take this post with a grain of salt. It’s not meant to prove anything, settle any arguments, or start another Apple Silicon vs. Intel war.
It’s just for fun. 🙂
All of these machines have been — or still are — used for actual professional work.
But after hours… well, there’s Civilization VI.
So, ladies and gentlemen, here is my completely objective, scientifically rigorous, and at the same time entirely personal MacBook Pro benchmark.
Testing methodology:
A legally owned copy of Civilization VI. A 4K external monitor. Exactly the same game settings on every machine. A game already past the year 1500, when the map is busy enough to make the hardware reconsider its life choices.
The benchmark measures one extremely important parameter:
NOISE.
From loudest to quietest — the fewer points, the better:
MacBook Pro M3 Pro — 100 points. Fans screaming pretty much the entire time. This is our reference value.
MacBook Pro M2 Max — 80 points. Fans screaming the entire time as well, but somewhat more politely. Still very much present, though.
MacBook Pro M5 Max — 30 points . Fans running continuously, but dramatically quieter. You can hear them, but they no longer sound like the MacBook is preparing for takeoff.
And finally…
2018 MacBook Pro — six-core Intel i9 + Blackmagic eGPU — 0 points. Silence. The MacBook fans? Inaudible. The Blackmagic eGPU fan? Inaudible.
Apparently, after all these years of technological progress, my ultimate Civilization VI machine is still an Intel MacBook Pro from 2018 connected to a giant black external GPU ;-)
Science has spoken.
Cheers, everyone.
Now I’m waiting for the M7 Max to finally beat a 2018 Intel MacBook at this highly sophisticated benchmark. ;-)
First of all, please take this post with a grain of salt. It’s not meant to prove anything, settle any arguments, or start another Apple Silicon vs. Intel war.
It’s just for fun. 🙂
All of these machines have been — or still are — used for actual professional work.
But after hours… well, there’s Civilization VI.
So, ladies and gentlemen, here is my completely objective, scientifically rigorous, and at the same time entirely personal MacBook Pro benchmark.
Testing methodology:
A legally owned copy of Civilization VI. A 4K external monitor. Exactly the same game settings on every machine. A game already past the year 1500, when the map is busy enough to make the hardware reconsider its life choices.
The benchmark measures one extremely important parameter:
NOISE.
From loudest to quietest — the fewer points, the better:
MacBook Pro M3 Pro — 100 points. Fans screaming pretty much the entire time. This is our reference value.
MacBook Pro M2 Max — 80 points. Fans screaming the entire time as well, but somewhat more politely. Still very much present, though.
MacBook Pro M5 Max — 30 points . Fans running continuously, but dramatically quieter. You can hear them, but they no longer sound like the MacBook is preparing for takeoff.
And finally…
2018 MacBook Pro — six-core Intel i9 + Blackmagic eGPU — 0 points. Silence. The MacBook fans? Inaudible. The Blackmagic eGPU fan? Inaudible.
Apparently, after all these years of technological progress, my ultimate Civilization VI machine is still an Intel MacBook Pro from 2018 connected to a giant black external GPU ;-)
Science has spoken.
Cheers, everyone.
Now I’m waiting for the M7 Max to finally beat a 2018 Intel MacBook at this highly sophisticated benchmark. ;-)