These Day , I often feel like I ’m one of those rarified breeds : a gamer who also loves Macs . My home function body of work is dissever between my M1 Mac mini and my small - form - factorWindows personal computer , and to be true it ’s plaguey to have to tack between the two all the time .
alas , my love of play — and Apple ’s proportional rawness here — means that I ’ve had to adhere with bothmacOS and Windowsfor some time now . Sure , I ’d love to degenerate Windows once and for all , but it just does n’t feel as though the Mac is quite there yet in damage of gambling performance .
That said , Apple’sM4 chipshave made gaming much more viable on a Mac . As we see in ourMac Studio review , the M4 Max flake is very capable when it get along to gaming carrying out .
I ’ve previously talked about how the Mac mini ’s gambling performance has made it difficult to resistditching my Windows PCand going all - in onmacOS . Now , the Mac Studio is making the whole situation even more puzzling .
The Mac Studio arrives
Pricing - wise , theMac miniand the Mac Studio seem to be fairly far apart , even when you boost the former ’s chip for better gaming yield . Get a Mac mini with M4 Pro chip and you ’ll pay around $ 1,399 — for the mac Studio with M4 Max silicon chip , you ’re see at starting Mary Leontyne Price of $ 1,999 . That $ 600 difference is hefty .
But thing get a bit more interesting when gaming becomes a more serious consideration . Because there ’s no discrete GPU in these Macs , and because the M4 Pro is far from Apple ’s hard chip , you ’ll credibly want the beefiest M4 Pro you may get . raise to the version with a 14 - gist processor and a 20 - core GPU and you ’re looking at a $ 1,599 terms — a more fairish $ 400 less than the Mac Studio .
That ’s important because the M4 Max is much better for gaming than the M4 Pro . In our Mac Studio inspection , the M4 Max strike 114fps in Civilization VI and managed smooth human body rate when run Baldur ’s Gate 3 at 4 K resolution , for exercise . It also outdo the M3 Ultra in gaming performance , which we were not expecting .
When we try out the Mac miniskirt , it execute worse than the previous - generation M3 Max chip . While we do n’t have a direct equivalence of the M4 Pro and M4 Max yet , it ’s clear that the latter should be right smart forward .
This has upended thing a bite for me . When the M4 Mac mini came out , I was so take on by its dinkey size of it and so impressed by its overall performance ( despite it lack a piddling in gambling ) that I was almost ready to get rid of my M1 Mac miniskirt and my Windows PC together and replace them with Apple ’s flyspeck desktop political machine .
Now that the Mac Studio with M4 Max is here , it ’s looking like the more attractive option for gamers . for certain , you ’ll have to give more , but it offers more authentic gaming operation while simultaneously outdoing even the M3 Ultra in terms of frame rate . That ’s obviously pretty confusing , but if it entail I do n’t have to pass $ 4,000 and up for an M3 Ultra Mac Studio , that ’s fine by me .
We need more native games
So , does that imply that the Mac Studio is the good choice for Apple gamers in search of a desktop machine ? perhaps , but Apple still has n’t fix the adult trouble here : a lack of aboriginal game .
The recent summation ofCyberpunk 2077was a self-aggrandizing winnings for Mac gamers , but it really feels like the exclusion that proves the rule . instance the gulf with Windows , there ’s still no aboriginal support forGrand Theft Auto V , Call of Duty , Elden Ringand other AAA game and franchises on the Mac .
Sure , you could supplement your Mac withNvidia GeForce Now , and that ’s somethingI’ve look at before . But that can get expensive and does n’t cover every game . And really , I ’d like to game natively rather than relying on another pricey subscription that drains my bank account every calendar month .
It ’s a shame that you have to pass Mac Studio money to get decent gaming functioning within Apple ’s ecosystem . Consideringcurrent GPU pricesfor Windows machine , perhaps I should n’t be surprised . But I ’d still rather not have to sell a kidney to enjoy a spot of Mac play at legato , unchanging frame pace .
Still , I ca n’t refuse that we ’re seeing advance . That the M4 Max can offer solid gambling performance at all is a welcome improvement over premature years . Hopefully 2025 will be the yr of top - tier plot come to the Mac — and of Apple solving the biggest problem Mac gamers are currently facing .
