Apple M1 Max meets or beats out popular gaming rig in new gaming performance test

Apple’s MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch laptops with Apple’s M1 Max, one of the two pro-level processors introduced this month, have been out for over a week now. And thanks to a new gaming test, we can see just how well the chip works in action — apparently better than a popular gaming rig setup.

The benchmark analysis tested frame rate and resolution, finding that the M1 Max beats out Nvidia’s Geforce RTX 3060, one of the best graphics cards out there that is a popular choice for mid-range gaming PCs.

The performance analysis used games such as Baldur’s Gate 3, Metro Exodus, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider in order to showcase the full power of the processor, which ran on a 16-inch MacBook Pro and 32GB of unified memory. The full test, which covered 25 popular PC titles, was performed by YouTuber MrMacRight, a content creator who focuses on Apple devices.

When tested at 1440p, Baldur’s Gate 3 ran at about 120 FPS consistently, and at the 2160p mark, the game ran at 60 FPS. Metro Exodus running through Rosetta ran 40-50 FPS at native resolution and at 96 FPS with 1080p resolution. Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which also runs through Rosetta, ran at 96 FPS with 1080p resolution as well under High settings.

Analysis: could Apple make Black Friday interesting for Mac gamers?

These tests aren’t just about bragging rights either. Optimization for Mac has never been a priority for gaming developers, seeing as how sales didn’t justify the effort. This in turn meant that demand for Mac optimization was low, causing a self-defeating cycle.

But having these kinds of tests showing off what M1 Max can really do, and do just as well as gaming rigs built specifically for this purpose, can go a long way in showing the demand for games to run well on Mac. 

This not only increases the market size but could positively impact sales for M1 Max and other Apple processors, just in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday which could have some pretty solid deals, despite the two Pro devices being only a few weeks old.

Last year, we saw some amazing Black Friday MacBook deals pop up with the then-new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13-inch laptops powered by the Apple M1 chip. The price cuts weren’t huge, but $100 or £100 off a weeks-old MacBook took us all by surprise and we’re hoping to be surprised again this year.

Via 9to5mac

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