So I’m planning on buying a new laptop for WoW. Due to the amount of travel, desktop is not an option. So laptop it is but I’m stuck between a macbook and gaming laptop. The only game I play on the laptop will be WoW. I want to run wow with max settings and occasionally play it on my 4k TV. For all other games, I have a ps5 so it just have to run wow smoothly. Besides WoW, the laptop will be used for movies/shows etc so I value a good screen. Im thinking about a macbook pro m2 (16gb ram, 512 ssd) or a lenovo legion 7 (Lenovo Legion Pro 7 16" WQXGA IPS 240Hz-i9-13900HX-32GB-1TB SSD-RTX 4070 8GB-W11H). They are around the same price (2700 euro) and do not want to spend more than 3k. I also want it to be a safe bet for the upcoming years (do I need to worry about potential Microsoft deal with Activision/Blizz if I choose a mac just for wow?)
What do you guys think? Any advise is greatly appreciated because I never owned a mac. Thanks!
I was on the same boat 6 months ago. Sold my PC bought macbook pro 16inch. Wow runs smooth battery life is great and i love the iOS. If you wont be playing anything else than wow, then macbook pro is the laptop to choose.
Go with 16inch because it has biggset battery, biggest speakrs, biggest resolution.
Unless battery life is your main reason for purchasing a Mac then i wouldn’t get one. I’ve tried WoW on the majority of Mac’s and while you can play it, the experiance is not the best. You have to run it on the lowest settings for it to run smoothly, which sort of detracts from all the work they spend on the environment. Personally i’d go for a Dell or HP as Lenovo have been a bit odd lately with driver support.
Definitely go for the Mac. You won’t regret it if you mainly use it to consume media. Wow plays decently on a Mac but probably not with maxed out settings. If you play it with render resolution close to 1080p then yes, you’ll probably get more than 60fps in most of the cases with zero antialiasing or x2 which should be enough anyway. It will look awesome on that 16inch screen too. Just make sure your Mac won’t overheat since this is a killer to any resource-intensive app like WoW is. So make sure you also get that Apple Care and go to Apple if it overheats. For everything else, you’ll pretty much get a bigger bang for your buck with the Mac too. Just remember it won’t run any x86 (32-bit) apps and doesn’t have Hardwarw Virtualization Instructions Set, so any Virtualization done on that platform is software.
I have played WoW on everything from a Cheesegrater Mac pro with a Rx580 card in, to an M2 Pro Mac Mini (with all its little network issues) and everything from a 2015 Macbook pro to an M2 Macbook Pro. I support them for a University so i erm test them The OP wanted Max settings and thats not possible on a Macbook Pro unfortunately. Believe me if you could i would myself as i am not a fan of Microcraps data slurping.
Yep when i got my hands on the M2 Pro Mini 16gb 512GB (alleviating the slow storage issue with the single chip) TBH i did expect more but it will not do Max settings as the OP wanted. I would say probably graphics at 3 to 4 without fine tuning is the max to get 60fps at 1080p. It didn’t have the extra uumph from the graphics cores as it was for music so they weren’t needed. To add a little bit of context here - max settings on my RX6800XT with an i5 10500 16 gig of ram machine sometimes struggles in Dragonflight to keep 60fps at 1440p. Knock it down a notch and it’s fine. Perhaps if the OP is willing to sacrifice some graphics quality (and tune it) then the M2 Pro mac may be an option?
I get decent fps at slightly higher than medium settings on 4k resolution. Higher than that on my 1440 uw monitor. But I do mostly pvp and do bgs so thats probably why my fps is goog?
I just did an interesting test on the difference between graphics setting 5 and graphics setting 10 (just standing there in a quiet area).
In Stormwind - 5 gave 220 fps and 10 gave 140 fps
In Zaralek Cavern - 5 gave me 125 fps and 10 gave me 110 fps
This holds out with age of area, graphics complexity and graphical physics rendering.
As for PvP in the world i would have though area dependent but in certain battle grounds then yes (if old world content). 60 fps is the normal users target not these crazy esport types and thier 120 fps
All i want is for the OP to load up WoW at thier required max settings and not think this is rubbish after paying out 3 grand! And unfortunately you can only really do that on Windoze with a decent spec device
In the end it’s up to the OP to decide but macs are for a nieche market and gaming isn’t it i’m afraid.
Note : Done on an i5-10500, RX6800XT with 16 Gb RAM
That’s pretty decent actually, I will mainly be gaming on de screen itself (tv is just sometimes) so if I can set the render scale to 50-75 and let FSR do the rest I should have a great experience no?
The testing i did was on my PC (post ammended to reflect that) so not on a Mac. When i get time i will do the FSR (Full Screen Resolution?) at 50% as a comparison to what i did earlier.
The main thing is to enjoy the game and i like getting immersed in the story and the surroundings hence i like max settings. If i could do mythics and raiding anymore i wouldn’t bother so much. Each to thier own
The OP wanted Max settings and thats not possible on a Macbook Pro unfortunately. Believe me if you could i would myself as i am not a fan of Microcraps data slurping.
