The 13-inch MacBook Pro comes with a dual-core processor, while the 15-inch model comes with a quad-core chip. (Note: that cool-looking aluminium chassis has a tendency to get pretty hot when asked to push 3D graphics around.) Of course, you won’t get anywhere near the performance of a desktop gaming PC out of an entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro, but it’s now enough to at least run modern games, probably with the resolution and detail settings turned down and the fancy effects kept to a minimum. Bump the graphics cards to the D700 option for an extra $1000 and you’re basically getting two top-end AMD FirePro cards for far less than the cost of the desktop variants.Īlthough integrated graphics are certainly no match for a proper graphics card, Intel’s offerings are far better than they used to be.
#Make a mac better for gaming upgrade#
The quad-core Mac Pro costs far more than a PC of comparable performance, but you can add a nice upgrade that works out as reasonable value for money. For gaming, the quad-core processor will deliver better performance in most cases, as the extra clock speed will affect gaming performance more than extra cores. The Xeon processor options range from a 3.7 GHz quad-core chip to a 2.7 GHz 12-core processor. Instead, you have to make do with up to 1TB of flash storage, which uses 4 PCI Express lanes for roughly 1GB/sec read and write speeds and external storage for additional capacity.Īnd since the Mac Pro is a workstation, it’s priced as such. The oddly shaped design gives the Mac Pro some really superb thermal efficiency, but also means you can’t fit hard disks inside it. It’s the only Mac to offer desktop graphics cards, custom designed by AMD to fit into the Mac Pro’s cylindrical shell. It comes with dual AMD FirePro professional GPUs, rebranded as D300, D500 and D700 cards. Don’t count on it playing anything but old and lightweight games. The processor only runs at 1.1 GHz in the case of the entry-level MacBook, and there are no options for discrete graphics cards. Should you buy them for gaming? Of all Apple’s products, the Mac Mini, Air, and new MacBook are the least suited to gaming since their CPUs are clocked fairly low, in favour of long battery life. With some Mac models, there’s the option of a discrete mobile GPU, from either Nvidia or AMD, but this depends on the type of Mac you’re buying.Īs with mini-ITX PCs and Ultrabooks, the Mac Mini and MacBook Air are designed to be as small as possible, and therefore the maximum performance they can offer is quite restricted, given there’s only so much heat output they can handle from powerful components. All Macs come with an Intel Haswell or Broadwell processor, with integrated graphics in the entry-level models. As we all know, the key to great gaming performance is having a good graphics card and processor.
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