The MacBook Pro M1 Max is an absolute beast — and a complete waste for gamers

The MacBook Pro M1 Max is an absolute animal — and a complete waste for gamers

(Epitome credit: Apple)

The new MacBook Pro 2021 14-inch and MacBook Pro 2021 16-inch are the about powerful laptops ever, thanks to the new M1 Pro and M1 Max. These chips offer a serious upgrade to last year'southward M1. Apple claims the chips, particularly the beefy M1 Max, rival or surpass GPUs from AMD and Nvidia.

The M1 Max's 32 GPU cores are certainly impressive. As WCCFTech reported, YouTubers like Vadim Yuryev provided stats of the M1 Max and claimed the fleck can deliver x.xl Teraflops of performance compared to PS5's ten.28. The Radeon RX Vega 56 (10.five teraflops) and GeForce RTX 2080 (10 teraflops) are as well within this range. And in our own MacBook Pro 2021 benchmark testing, the M1 Pro and M1 Max-equipped machines both achieved some stunning results.

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While the M1 Max is considerately powerful, that doesn't mean the MacBook Pro packed with the scrap is automatically a gaming laptop or. That isn't to say the potential isn't there. The MacBook Pro or a futurity device with an M1 Max could be a solid gaming platform. Unfortunately, there are two significant obstacles preventing that from happening.

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Where are the macOS games?

The first matter preventing the MacBook Pro from existence a feasible gaming platform is the lack of noteworthy titles for Mac. Fortnite, Hades and Disco Elysium are solid titles, but where are the Grand Theft Autos, Assassin'due south Creeds or Witchers? Yous can find them on Steam, GoG and gaming consoles but you won't notice them on macOS.

Here's a list of the top ten about pop Steam games.

Just four titles on this listing take Mac support. That'due south great, just they aren't exactly brand-new games. Squad Fortress was released in 2007 while Dota2 and Rust came out in 2013. Hit Steam games like Resident Evil Hamlet, Hitman iii and Mass Effect Legendary Edition are non on Mac. Yous could have a programme like Parallels run Windows on Mac, only information technology's not as solid as having native Mac support.

A steep toll to pay

Fifty-fifty if Mac had a wealth of AAA and indie games, the other major barrier preventing it from being a viable gaming platform for about consumers is price. $3,299 for the decked-out MacBook Pro with an M1 Max fleck is a difficult pill to swallow, fifty-fifty if you have a well-paying job. The 16-inch MacBook Pro starts at $3,499 with M1 Max.

Powerful Windows gaming laptops cost considerably less. For instance, yous can go an Alienware M15 R4 gaming laptop with 10th gen Intel Core i7, Nvidia RTX 3080 GPU, 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage for $2,609. The 17-inch MSI GE76 Raider with a RTX 3080, 300Hz refresh rate and 1TB storage goes for $3,099, although more expensive and powerful configs are available.

If y'all're a professional musician or 3D illustrator, so the price of the new MacBook Pros is justifiable. If you're a gamer with that kind of money, you're better off ownership a gaming laptop or gaming desktop similar I did.

Reality check

Gaming is possible on the new MacBook Pros. Both the M1 Pro and M1 Max are more than capable of delivering loftier-quality graphics and smooth performance. But at present, the lack of AAA titles doesn't justify the price of Apple'due south newest laptops. This could change in the future, particularly if Apple throws enough money at developers to get big titles on macOS.

For at present, you're amend off with true gaming laptops like the Razer Blade xv Avant-garde or the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14.

More: Apple M1 Pro vs M1 Max: What'due south the difference?

Tony is a calculating writer at Tom'southward Guide roofing laptops, tablets, Windows, and iOS. During his off-hours, Tony enjoys reading comic books, playing video games, reading speculative fiction novels, and spending too much time on Twitter. His not-nerdy pursuits involve attending Difficult Rock/Heavy Metal concerts and going to NYC bars with friends and colleagues. His work has appeared in publications such as Laptop Magazine, PC Mag, and various contained gaming sites.