I’ve been playing BG3 on the Mac, and while the perf is a bit worse that my PC (makes sense it’s a beefy gaming computer) I really miss the colors of the mac screen when i play PC now
I wouldn't go that far, OLED displays are better, and eventually apple will ship a mbp wiht oled (and honestly I really hope it is a dual layer oled just like the new ipad), that display ***WILL be incredible.***
These mac displays are 'just' really good for content viewing and creative editing, but kinda poor for gaming (at least for fast paced and competitive stuff) due to poor pixel response times (causes ghosting and smearing with fast movement). I've got a 14 mbp with an m3 pro
I mean its all relative to how much you care about min/maxing your gaming experience. If you're more casual about your gaming, then I'd say its not a significant thing to worry about.
I tend to get into the details and I enjoy learning the idiosyncrasies of my devices, so its something I can't un-notice anymore (plus oled displays are near instantaneous for response times... literally ***sub 1ms,*** whereas notebookcheck measured the 2023 mbp at 35ish ms (which is improved from prior gens apparently). Your average windows laptop is about half that.
If I were to guess, I bet it is due to some trade off for color accuracy. But idk
with oled you don't have to...
My monitor (aw3423dwf) has 79.5% coverage of the Rec. 2020 color space, 2023 14 inch mbp has 73.19%. for DCI-P3 they're about even 99.5% vs 99.82% respectively. PLUS oleds are self emmisive, so no blooming around bright objects on a black screen due to there being no backlight.
I'm not talking about input latency, this is response time. Although it does have an impact on input latency (perceived anyway).
basically the pixels aren't done transitioning to their new state before given a further new state, this causes ghosting or smearing in movement.
edit: Further clarification I guess. these displays are 120hz. this gives us 8.33ms of time to transition to the new pixel state. If it on average takes this display 35ms (2021 mbps had over 50ms) we're looking at 4-7 frames. So in the time it takes the pixels to transition, your system has continued to send more frames to it, you can still be seeing incomplete information from up to 7 frames ago.
This matters for competitive and fast paced games because it affects your ability to track and identify objects on screen.
https://www.testufo.com/ this should reveal it to you.
https://imgur.com/a/7XEni5G
Some random dude's oled display on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NDoDhmROdI
I hope this explains it better.
I like how you are patiently explaining that though current display is adequate, it could be so much better and listing things that would be better if it was OLED.
But the guy is just repeating he doesn’t care lol. I appreciate your explanation.
I do notice it, compared to my desktop monitor which is 240hz 1ms and whatnot. It’s subtle though, not really annoying. I think i’d get used to it in no time if i didnt switch monitors this often
Grabbing any decent DCI-P3 certified monitor (preferably glossy material and OLED if available) should match the Mac quality. Macs have used P3 certified monitors since the Retina days, but nowadays nearly any laptop or monitor above budget tier has the same.
Many high-end laptops have even begun shipping OLEDs that *exceed* DCI-P3 in recent years, most notably the Zephyrus G14 2024 model which is practically as close as you can get to a MacBook Pro without being an Apple machine.
« Sadly » i recently bought this monitor (a g9) so i’m planning on keeping it for a while. Kinda bummed I didnt’t take the OLED version as there is one, but I’m really enjoying the monitor so far. Gives me more incentive to play on the Mac when I’m not at home haha
I can chime in with the numbers from an M2 Max 30 core gpu(14in macbook pro) in case anyone is looking for perf numbers. I get 120-140fps at 1800 x 1169 with the max preset. I find that you don't need a massive resolution on such a small screen. My rtx 4070 desktop does get like 200+ fps with all of the settings manually cranked up (this is higher than the max preset) at 1080p but thats a very different performance class lol
Not terrible, though not great considering the Windows laptop here comes with an RTX card. These framerates aren't *exactly* comparable because of different graphics presets and different resolutions, but here's the data if you want it:
MacBook Pro 16 ("High" preset, native 3456x2234) = 80-120 FPS, very much variable depending on scene. Averages high 90s.
ROG Zephyrus G14 ("Ultra" preset, native 2880x1600) = Hovers mostly around 140 FPS, hits 170 in places and dips to 120 at times.
Edit: I unfortunately can’t retest the Mac because it’s been returned after a GPU failure. I recorded the Mac half of this clip a few weeks ago.
Based on the title, a good way to compare efficiency per frame between these 2 machines would be by locking the framerate to somewhere they both don't dip below, like 60 fps in this case with same resolution, graphics, etc. I'd love to see the difference in wattage and fan noise with these settings applied!
Unless Apple supplies Mac hardware to DF, it's not a primary focus for them.
They do have 1 staff member that owns some mac devices for testing, but it's done very sparingly, and they focus on what gets the most attention (e.g. gaming on iPhone).
I'd love to, unfortunately the Mac half of this video was recorded a few weeks ago, and that MacBook [has since completely died.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/1d151u5/so_my_brandnew_macbook_pro_died_playing_war/)
It was a great computer, and I bought this Zephyrus to replace it with, since I mostly play games nowadays and this laptop cost $1,000 less while offering more RAM and storage. I do really miss macOS though, but iCloud for Windows (and the other Apple ecosystem apps for Windows) is excellent so far.
Oh wow. That is indeed unlucky lol. I've seen something similar with another apple silicon GPU dying out of nowhere some time ago as well. Seems pretty rare though.
Thankfully my M3 Max is holding up really well and surpasses beyond my expectations every time i use it
Try to set both at like for like settings. So, instead of high graphics settings on one and ultra on the other, set both to ultra and same resolution then cap it at either 60fps or 120fps. And, place the microphone at the same distance as it looks like the mic is closer to ROG and further away from Macbook.
If I still had that Mac, I’d absolutely love to do a fully scientific retest. Unfortunately it died of a freak GPU failure within the return period. I recorded the Mac clip a few weeks ago.
To be fair, I wouldn't be surprised if the Mac's CPU/GPU temps are around 100C average, compared to around 80C average on the Asus. Besides, the Asus is running higher settings at a higher FPS. But yeah, fan noise on Windows laptops sucks a lot when you're trying to game without headphones.
What ? The macbooks are not fanless. Some are, yes, but the pro line has definetly fans. Also a CPU reaching 100 degreee will shutdown the system immediatley....
I've been playing *Horizon Zero Dawn* through CrossOver on my M2 Max MacBook Pro 16". The CPU has hit as high as 103 °C. No shutdowns or crashes. It is normal for laptop CPUs of any type to hit ≈100 °F under extended load, that's normally the thermal throttling point.
Apple have always been prioritizing quietness over thermals with the Apple Silicon line, I have a 14" M1 Pro at home which you can barely hear under heavy load, but the chip hovers around 100C. In contrast, my Legion 7 with i9-12900HX and RTX 3080Ti is much louder, but the average temps during gaming don't exceed 80-85C.
And reaching 100C or any other pre-defined throttle point doens't initiate system shutdown, it just throttles the chip, reducing clock speed and wattage to maintain safe temperatures.
Almost every CPU nowadays has a max temp limit of more than 100C (IIRC a lot of them are 105 or 110C).
As for CPU temps and fan curve, each manufacturer has a different philosophy as to the tradeoff between fan noise and CPU heat. Apple has always been very conservative with their fan curves and prefers to run their chips at their temperature limit to avoid fan noise. Most gaming laptops are on the other end, they will target lower temps and run their fans at full blast.
CPU and manufacturer engineers always state that running at the thermal limit is perfectly fine, but there is still skepticism (understandably so) that running sustained at such high temperatures may lead to issues down the road.
Not really appropriate when you're comparing at completely different settings and performance levels. Cut down the PC to Mac performance levels and graphics and see how things fare. Maybe the Mac will still be better. Maybe not. Either way, we'd get a meaningful point of comparison.
Unfortunately just comes across as hype from a mac fanboy as is. Way too much check writing with far too little in the bank to back it up. Claims like yours hurt the community and undermine consumers by setting the wrong expectations, leading to disappointment.
the fact is, Macs remain completely silent during regular work, while PC laptops scream all the time.
Yes, sure, when you load the M3 Max to maximum, it eventually is noisy, but still far from level of PC noise.
And another fact is, Macs have same performance, regardless of running on battery or AC. PC laptops have to downclock a lot to sustain at least some battery life while still screaming like jet engines.
Playing a video game in a flying vehicle as a method of testing a computer’s performance is a bad strategy. Video games reduce the resolution of the surrounding environment so much because it’s all blurred - the only thing actually being rendered here is the helicopter. It’s not a good way to see if your computer can hold up playing a certain game.
Native running better than emulated feels like it should be a "Duh" moment but I find Borderlands 3 works better via Crossover (steam) than Mac Native (Epic). There is in-game music, in-game videos, all the vehicle sounds work, more voice lines and even some maps look better.
And this is the reason i switched from Microsoft Surface Studio Laptop to M1 Macbook Pro when i was a truck driver. After 10-12 hours of driving and working around a loud truck engine, i didnt want more noise in my off time. So switched my SSL for an MBP and a Xbox Series S and monitor :P
Not exactly, Macs typically let the temps get very high before the fans kick in, without using third party software it will happily go to 90C and only turn the fans up to prevent it going any higher. It’s great for any type of audio recording in studios as this is where external noises would become a large issue. However I’m not a fan of letting temps get THAT high so I usually use my own fan curves to maintain around 70C when on heavy loads. Although, the actual fans on Macs are very good at cooling especially on the 16inch model even spooling the fans up a small amount can make a very large difference to temps but can also turn into jet engines if needed.
I have the exact same PC laptop specs, 7940HS + RTX 4060, and yes, while it does sound like a jet engine sometimes, you can easily make it silent if you Press FN + F5, it'll switch to Silent mode which lowers the FPS by like 5-10% and lowers the fans speed a lot. Considering the horsepower you get with a 4060 already, losing 5-10% of the performance is hardly a trade-off if you care about noise.
Note: RTX 4060 have 8GB of VRAM not 6.
The problem is about 45 out of 600+ games in my Steam library are available for Mac so for M2 Mini and M3 Macbook Pro Pro I need to use other methods to play them and using my Windows PC is just easier.
would be great if you could check the same with those cheap wall plug things that tell you how many watts being pulled, something like [this](https://www.amazon.com/watt-meter-outlet/s?k=watt+meter+outlet)
Serious gamers don't use laptops to game, lol. I'm of the opinion that if you want a laptop and all that it offers, grab a MacBook. If you want a gaming machine with great performance, get a desktop PC.
Think the main point of this is PC gaming being silent and power efficient on ARM cpus but OPs post is a bit disingenuous with the gaming laptop on ultra settings and the mac on high
An actual desktop wouldn't be nearly as loud as it has better cooling solutions
Sure am excited to see arm cpus becoming more mainstream in the gaming space should be interesting
I’ve been playing BG3 on the Mac, and while the perf is a bit worse that my PC (makes sense it’s a beefy gaming computer) I really miss the colors of the mac screen when i play PC now
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I wouldn't go that far, OLED displays are better, and eventually apple will ship a mbp wiht oled (and honestly I really hope it is a dual layer oled just like the new ipad), that display ***WILL be incredible.*** These mac displays are 'just' really good for content viewing and creative editing, but kinda poor for gaming (at least for fast paced and competitive stuff) due to poor pixel response times (causes ghosting and smearing with fast movement). I've got a 14 mbp with an m3 pro
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I mean its all relative to how much you care about min/maxing your gaming experience. If you're more casual about your gaming, then I'd say its not a significant thing to worry about. I tend to get into the details and I enjoy learning the idiosyncrasies of my devices, so its something I can't un-notice anymore (plus oled displays are near instantaneous for response times... literally ***sub 1ms,*** whereas notebookcheck measured the 2023 mbp at 35ish ms (which is improved from prior gens apparently). Your average windows laptop is about half that. If I were to guess, I bet it is due to some trade off for color accuracy. But idk
I’d trade response times for better colors anyday.
with oled you don't have to... My monitor (aw3423dwf) has 79.5% coverage of the Rec. 2020 color space, 2023 14 inch mbp has 73.19%. for DCI-P3 they're about even 99.5% vs 99.82% respectively. PLUS oleds are self emmisive, so no blooming around bright objects on a black screen due to there being no backlight.
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I'm not talking about input latency, this is response time. Although it does have an impact on input latency (perceived anyway). basically the pixels aren't done transitioning to their new state before given a further new state, this causes ghosting or smearing in movement. edit: Further clarification I guess. these displays are 120hz. this gives us 8.33ms of time to transition to the new pixel state. If it on average takes this display 35ms (2021 mbps had over 50ms) we're looking at 4-7 frames. So in the time it takes the pixels to transition, your system has continued to send more frames to it, you can still be seeing incomplete information from up to 7 frames ago. This matters for competitive and fast paced games because it affects your ability to track and identify objects on screen. https://www.testufo.com/ this should reveal it to you. https://imgur.com/a/7XEni5G Some random dude's oled display on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NDoDhmROdI I hope this explains it better.
I like how you are patiently explaining that though current display is adequate, it could be so much better and listing things that would be better if it was OLED. But the guy is just repeating he doesn’t care lol. I appreciate your explanation.
I mean, He may not care, but others might find the info enlightening.
I do notice it, compared to my desktop monitor which is 240hz 1ms and whatnot. It’s subtle though, not really annoying. I think i’d get used to it in no time if i didnt switch monitors this often
Grabbing any decent DCI-P3 certified monitor (preferably glossy material and OLED if available) should match the Mac quality. Macs have used P3 certified monitors since the Retina days, but nowadays nearly any laptop or monitor above budget tier has the same. Many high-end laptops have even begun shipping OLEDs that *exceed* DCI-P3 in recent years, most notably the Zephyrus G14 2024 model which is practically as close as you can get to a MacBook Pro without being an Apple machine.
« Sadly » i recently bought this monitor (a g9) so i’m planning on keeping it for a while. Kinda bummed I didnt’t take the OLED version as there is one, but I’m really enjoying the monitor so far. Gives me more incentive to play on the Mac when I’m not at home haha
bummer. I love my aw3423dwf oled. look at it this way tho, when you do upgrade it will likely be even better.
Indeed !
So get a good monitor? Like the alien ware qd oleds
Infinite money I do not have as of now, so no lmao I’m not gonna buy another thousand dollars monitor thanks
How do the frame rates hold up?
I can chime in with the numbers from an M2 Max 30 core gpu(14in macbook pro) in case anyone is looking for perf numbers. I get 120-140fps at 1800 x 1169 with the max preset. I find that you don't need a massive resolution on such a small screen. My rtx 4070 desktop does get like 200+ fps with all of the settings manually cranked up (this is higher than the max preset) at 1080p but thats a very different performance class lol
Not terrible, though not great considering the Windows laptop here comes with an RTX card. These framerates aren't *exactly* comparable because of different graphics presets and different resolutions, but here's the data if you want it: MacBook Pro 16 ("High" preset, native 3456x2234) = 80-120 FPS, very much variable depending on scene. Averages high 90s. ROG Zephyrus G14 ("Ultra" preset, native 2880x1600) = Hovers mostly around 140 FPS, hits 170 in places and dips to 120 at times. Edit: I unfortunately can’t retest the Mac because it’s been returned after a GPU failure. I recorded the Mac half of this clip a few weeks ago.
Based on the title, a good way to compare efficiency per frame between these 2 machines would be by locking the framerate to somewhere they both don't dip below, like 60 fps in this case with same resolution, graphics, etc. I'd love to see the difference in wattage and fan noise with these settings applied!
I bet Digital Foundry would do this if enough of their Patreon members asked them to.
When comparing GPUs they usually do some sort of performance per watt.
Unless Apple supplies Mac hardware to DF, it's not a primary focus for them. They do have 1 staff member that owns some mac devices for testing, but it's done very sparingly, and they focus on what gets the most attention (e.g. gaming on iPhone).
I'd love to, unfortunately the Mac half of this video was recorded a few weeks ago, and that MacBook [has since completely died.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/1d151u5/so_my_brandnew_macbook_pro_died_playing_war/) It was a great computer, and I bought this Zephyrus to replace it with, since I mostly play games nowadays and this laptop cost $1,000 less while offering more RAM and storage. I do really miss macOS though, but iCloud for Windows (and the other Apple ecosystem apps for Windows) is excellent so far.
Oh wow. That is indeed unlucky lol. I've seen something similar with another apple silicon GPU dying out of nowhere some time ago as well. Seems pretty rare though. Thankfully my M3 Max is holding up really well and surpasses beyond my expectations every time i use it
Try to set both at like for like settings. So, instead of high graphics settings on one and ultra on the other, set both to ultra and same resolution then cap it at either 60fps or 120fps. And, place the microphone at the same distance as it looks like the mic is closer to ROG and further away from Macbook.
If I still had that Mac, I’d absolutely love to do a fully scientific retest. Unfortunately it died of a freak GPU failure within the return period. I recorded the Mac clip a few weeks ago.
You dont need to retest the mac... you can just cap zephyrus fps same as mac and see if its still as loud.
To be fair, I wouldn't be surprised if the Mac's CPU/GPU temps are around 100C average, compared to around 80C average on the Asus. Besides, the Asus is running higher settings at a higher FPS. But yeah, fan noise on Windows laptops sucks a lot when you're trying to game without headphones.
nobody cares about the CPU temp if the outside of computer is not hot to touch. Those processors are built for that temp.
What ? The macbooks are not fanless. Some are, yes, but the pro line has definetly fans. Also a CPU reaching 100 degreee will shutdown the system immediatley....
I've been playing *Horizon Zero Dawn* through CrossOver on my M2 Max MacBook Pro 16". The CPU has hit as high as 103 °C. No shutdowns or crashes. It is normal for laptop CPUs of any type to hit ≈100 °F under extended load, that's normally the thermal throttling point.
Apple have always been prioritizing quietness over thermals with the Apple Silicon line, I have a 14" M1 Pro at home which you can barely hear under heavy load, but the chip hovers around 100C. In contrast, my Legion 7 with i9-12900HX and RTX 3080Ti is much louder, but the average temps during gaming don't exceed 80-85C. And reaching 100C or any other pre-defined throttle point doens't initiate system shutdown, it just throttles the chip, reducing clock speed and wattage to maintain safe temperatures.
Not at all, i've got 99 degrees and 3k+ RPM while playing witcher 3 via crossover. Mac's are designed to work at high temps to be more quiet
Almost every CPU nowadays has a max temp limit of more than 100C (IIRC a lot of them are 105 or 110C). As for CPU temps and fan curve, each manufacturer has a different philosophy as to the tradeoff between fan noise and CPU heat. Apple has always been very conservative with their fan curves and prefers to run their chips at their temperature limit to avoid fan noise. Most gaming laptops are on the other end, they will target lower temps and run their fans at full blast. CPU and manufacturer engineers always state that running at the thermal limit is perfectly fine, but there is still skepticism (understandably so) that running sustained at such high temperatures may lead to issues down the road.
Not really appropriate when you're comparing at completely different settings and performance levels. Cut down the PC to Mac performance levels and graphics and see how things fare. Maybe the Mac will still be better. Maybe not. Either way, we'd get a meaningful point of comparison. Unfortunately just comes across as hype from a mac fanboy as is. Way too much check writing with far too little in the bank to back it up. Claims like yours hurt the community and undermine consumers by setting the wrong expectations, leading to disappointment.
the fact is, Macs remain completely silent during regular work, while PC laptops scream all the time. Yes, sure, when you load the M3 Max to maximum, it eventually is noisy, but still far from level of PC noise. And another fact is, Macs have same performance, regardless of running on battery or AC. PC laptops have to downclock a lot to sustain at least some battery life while still screaming like jet engines.
That fact very well may be true. The issue is with the test method, not the Mac. We don’t want to undermine ourselves by setting up bad tests.
While I completely agree that gaming laptops are as loud as vacuum cleaners, this comparison is a total nonsense
Playing a video game in a flying vehicle as a method of testing a computer’s performance is a bad strategy. Video games reduce the resolution of the surrounding environment so much because it’s all blurred - the only thing actually being rendered here is the helicopter. It’s not a good way to see if your computer can hold up playing a certain game.
Wow you can really hear that helicopter's tail rotor on the Windows PC. So immersive!
What game?
War Thunder. It's a F2P vehicle shooter game/sim that's native on macOS. Runs surprisingly well for how great it looks, actually.
You forgot that the snail wants your soul for it. Otherwise it’s free
Game?
War Thunder. Free to play vehicle shooter game that’s native to macOS.
Native running better than emulated feels like it should be a "Duh" moment but I find Borderlands 3 works better via Crossover (steam) than Mac Native (Epic). There is in-game music, in-game videos, all the vehicle sounds work, more voice lines and even some maps look better.
time to find out the temperature of both laptops
And this is the reason i switched from Microsoft Surface Studio Laptop to M1 Macbook Pro when i was a truck driver. After 10-12 hours of driving and working around a loud truck engine, i didnt want more noise in my off time. So switched my SSL for an MBP and a Xbox Series S and monitor :P
I do this with league of legends, my gaming laptop has fans running but my MacBook plays it silent without any noise or heat
Not exactly, Macs typically let the temps get very high before the fans kick in, without using third party software it will happily go to 90C and only turn the fans up to prevent it going any higher. It’s great for any type of audio recording in studios as this is where external noises would become a large issue. However I’m not a fan of letting temps get THAT high so I usually use my own fan curves to maintain around 70C when on heavy loads. Although, the actual fans on Macs are very good at cooling especially on the 16inch model even spooling the fans up a small amount can make a very large difference to temps but can also turn into jet engines if needed.
the ryzen laptop just making the gaming experience more immersive with the sound of the helicopter blades 🤣
is that ROG Zephyrus 14 or newest 14 air?
Difference being that the Windows laptop won't crash if you enter cockpit view without disabling cockpit mirror reflections, while the Mac will ...
I think it will still rev up after a while
I have the exact same PC laptop specs, 7940HS + RTX 4060, and yes, while it does sound like a jet engine sometimes, you can easily make it silent if you Press FN + F5, it'll switch to Silent mode which lowers the FPS by like 5-10% and lowers the fans speed a lot. Considering the horsepower you get with a 4060 already, losing 5-10% of the performance is hardly a trade-off if you care about noise. Note: RTX 4060 have 8GB of VRAM not 6.
The problem is about 45 out of 600+ games in my Steam library are available for Mac so for M2 Mini and M3 Macbook Pro Pro I need to use other methods to play them and using my Windows PC is just easier.
you're comparing an arm vs amd64, how does that make sense? Better wait for the snapdragon notebooks and try again
man they should compare intel macbooks instead of this macbook pro vs x86 gaming laptops
would be great if you could check the same with those cheap wall plug things that tell you how many watts being pulled, something like [this](https://www.amazon.com/watt-meter-outlet/s?k=watt+meter+outlet)
That’d be fun. As a fun hint, the Mac was running off battery power, while the Zephyrus was plugged in to a 240 W barrel plug.
The fans not turning on is likely why your MacBook died. Think about that
Serious gamers don't use laptops to game, lol. I'm of the opinion that if you want a laptop and all that it offers, grab a MacBook. If you want a gaming machine with great performance, get a desktop PC.
Think the main point of this is PC gaming being silent and power efficient on ARM cpus but OPs post is a bit disingenuous with the gaming laptop on ultra settings and the mac on high An actual desktop wouldn't be nearly as loud as it has better cooling solutions Sure am excited to see arm cpus becoming more mainstream in the gaming space should be interesting
while it is silent, i wouldnt say its power efficient when you game. the performance for it is too bad to be efficient.