One of the strengths of Apple’s M1 Max APU or SoC is its integrated GPU, the largest on a chip of its kind for a personal computer to date. However, the most popular function of any GPU is to generate graphics for video games and the M1 Max just doesn’t seem up to it. Because?
A few days ago we told you about the performance of the M1 Max benchmarks where the integrated GPU of the M1 MAX holds up against dedicated GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD. Keep in mind that Apple with the leap to create its own processors not only ditched Intel in CPUs, but also NVIDIA and AMD in high-caliber GPUs for its high-end Macintosh. Although in the case of the links with those of Jensen Huang, they have long been severed.
M1 Max vs. NVIDIA RTX 30 in video games
The Macintoshes have not stood out against video games, since they are quite equal to Apple. The proof is that they have the resources and the processes to create a video game platform that rivals PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo from you to you, but they don’t want to. In other words, in Cupertino their computers don’t think about playing games.
Well, through a series of performance tests, it was possible to see how the built-in GPU of the M1 Pro and M1 Max can only keep the kind of performance compared to an RTX 3060 or RTX 3080 for laptops. in GFXBench 5.0, which by the way, is the performance test we discussed a few days ago.
In the Tomb Raider benchmark at 1440p we can see how the M1 Max pulls out 83 FPS in video games, in front 57 FPS M1 Pro, 79 FPS RTX 3060 Mobile and 112 FPS RTX 3080 Mobile. Although the differences are compounded if we talk about the Geekbench computer benchmark where NVIDIA’s dedicated graphics cards even triple the performance compared to Apple’s integrated GPUs.
Results interpretation
If there’s anything we have to concede to Apple, it’s the fact that its integrated GPU, thanks to being a Tile Renderer, is much more power efficient than using NVIDIA graphics cards for laptops from. The latter consume and generate on their own the same amount of heat or even more than the complete Cupertino solution. Let us not forget that the Macintoshes have become personal computers since the end of the 90s with a strong and unique industrial design that requires specific hardware solutions, based more on performance per watt than on raw power.
Another point that we have to take into account, especially in the case of the Tomb Raider benchmark, is that this game runs under Rosetta and therefore there is a process of transferring the x86 instructions from the original game to the natives under the ISA. ARM recently adapted by Apple. So it’s really an unfair comparison when comparing a game that runs natively on Windows to one that doesn’t run on Macintosh M1 Pro and M1 Max.
In conclusion, who buys an Apple Macintosh to play games? It is a pity that those of Tim Cook do not take them seriously, because due to material limitations this is not the case, it is out of sheer disinterest.
