M1 Max = RTX 3080

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Hello everyone, had a name change and didn’t know that would wipe out my past forum profile with it. Just wanted to throw this out there for anyone who is asking what kind of experience you would get gaming on the new 16 inch M1 Max. I just got my M1 Max to replace my M1 Pro (all max near me were backordered since October) and the performance blew me away.

If anyone is interested I can do a more detailed review, but the from the few hours of gameplay I had the performance is the same, if not better, than what I had on my Razer Blade QHD 240hz RTX-3080 (10th gen). The reason I said better is due to the fact that the Mac is achieving all of this at full native resolution (3456 × 2234) with settings all set to 10 and high (Ultra SSAO and shadow causes you to lose around 17 fps). The performance is pretty much at desktop level (Alienware R11 3080). The only problem that’s of concern to me is the response rate of the screen, I almost noticed immediately that there is a major delay in response time even though it’s 120+ hz for the new liquid XDR displays. These new XDR panels have a GTG of 58.4, which is just abhorrent, in fact that was the very first thing I visually noticed.

For those of you like me who only plays WOW and uses a mac, this is the news I’ve been waiting for in the past 11 years. The only thing of concern is just the response time now, but depending on your in game content this may or may not be of importance to you. I know for sure that I wouldn’t feel entirely comfortable doing high end M+ or arena with that amount of response time.

If you are deciding between the M1 Max and the M1 Pro, the Max is worth the extra $ if you can afford it, as it allows you to run WOW at max settings (high performance mode with the 16 inch) with 120+ fps with addons such as ELVUI (M1 Pro couldn’t handle the game with ELVUI).

Let me know you have any questions! I’ve been playing wow on a mac for 11 years, so don’t shy from questions if you have any, I should be able to answer most if not all of your questions. I know how frustrating it can be to troubleshoot mac problems on your own (done of myself all these years), so I’m just letting everyone here know that I’m here to help if you have any questions.

If any of you guys think it would help for a new wow performance guide for macs running apple silicon then I’ll make an updated version similar to that by Stoneblade as that guide is specifically geared towards intel macs.

Stay safe my fellow mac gamers!

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i don’t notice any lags in display. Two things I’d check

  1. In display settings it’s set to promotion and not a static refresh rate
  2. vsync is enabled in game.

from there metal will use variable refresh rate tech when wow is in full screen.
when wow is NOT in full screen VRR will not be used and instead desktop may use a lower refresh rate.

Other performance tip to get highest frames and still stay at ultra 10 settings, set render scale to 50% and in advanced options set resample to fidelity super resolution. you’ll have still a native looking sharpness and detail at half the gpu cost, allowing you to get much more consistent 120fps. I’d also disable the compute shaders, they are too expensive in zones like ardenweald and will be differece of getting 80-90fps in worst areas versus 60-70.

Lastly. the m1 max runs HOT. i’m talking 90C+ hot while gaming if letting apple control fans. you can keep it MUCH cooler by using “macs fan control” and setting up own gpu temperature curve or setting up “half” and “full” blast profiles while gaming. your system will literally run 10-20C cooler and that is huge…in fact I noticed if I didn’t do that, my 120fps sometimes suddenly became 60 and it’d be because of thermal throttling (all while fans still weren’t revved up. Yes apple would rather throttle performance than use the fans).

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Side note: if you make a character with your old name on the same realm and level it to 10, you should retain the forum history on that character.

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M1 Max is “RTX 3080” for compute tasks (some productivy benchmarks). In games they managed to test it it’s around RTX 3060.

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I had a Razer Blade QHD 3080, but for wow it’s definitely on par if not better than what I was getting. I think partly due to the fact that wow is native for apple silicon, while the games that were tested were running via emulation.

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I think Anandtech and Notebookcheck as well as HUB did test few native ones. In WoW M1 struggled with particle effects like any iGPU. M1 Max has much better memory bandwidth (and bigger iGPU) but still going M1 Max should be justified by something way better than WoW. Also laptop with 3080 are bit of a lye due to mobile part and their power constraints. Even mobile 3070 is a mixed value (and can have various TDPs from awful to somewhat acceptable).

On a small laptop screen even RTX 3060 or 1660Ti would be more than enough for WoW 1080/1440p even for faster screens assuming CPU is really good.

And to get GPU heavy scenario in WoW you would need a widefield view in Ardenweald or a lot of particle effects that happen in some boss encounters (I use a lot of mobs from old Karazan that constantly channel a flame spell).

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Yea of course, this obviously can’t compete with my 3080 in my desktop. But for the performance it offers on the go in the package it’s in, I’m more than satisfied with it, hope wow continues to support Mac OS, it’s a big reason I’ve been subscribed for 11 years haha.

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Thanks. This gives me great hope for the 27 inch (or larger) iMac models to come in 2022.

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do you have suggestions for my optimal settings to achieve 60FPS or at least 50FPS stable while still having nice graphics settings?

I run a macbook pro 2017 15 inch 2.9ghz!

Thank you~!

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So you have Radeon Pro 555 or Radeon Pro 560 which are bit better than modern typical iGPU (Vega 8/Xe G7). I would recommend running the game at 1080p resolution and mode 3 or 4. If you get stutter when mass spell effects go out on mode 4 then go to 3 or directl lower spell effects settings.

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Hi, are you using 32 or 24 core gpu version ? Thanks ^^

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bit late to the reply, but 34 core

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Was the client just not optimized well for M1 Macs back in December? I bought a 16" MBP M1 Pro on NYE, and in a very densely packed Orgrimmar with settings set to 10 and everything cranked except shadows, and I pull about 84 FPS.

Cranking shadows tanks it, but I’d hardly call the M1 Pro unable to handle the game with ElvUI - which I use as well.

Similar levels of performance in SL areas as well…and yes this is at native resolution of the built in panel, 100% scale.

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Hey, thanks for the detailed post. Ive never used macs fan control before. what sensor do you typically find the most useful to control? im watching cpu core average now. I feel like gpu makes sense, but the m1 has cpu and gpu integration, correct?

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I use gpu core temp for monitoring and fan curve control.

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Thank you for this post. I am returning to the Mac after 3 years on an Alienware R9 with the RTX 2080Ti. I was concerned about how well I could run WoW on a Mac. Pushing the buy button on a Mac Studio today!

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I just got my Mac Studio M1 Max (32-core GPU) last week and would like to add my experience on how it runs WoW. (warning: long post)

It’s a great machine so far. Major upgrade compared to my old 2017 iMac 5K. I’ve hooked it up to a LG 27GN950-B 144 Hz 4K gaming monitor (still also waiting for the Studio Display to be delivered). The cable I use is a USB-C to Displayport 1.4.

I play in native 4K (3840x2160) with most settings on High and Ultra but with Shadows and Liquid on “Fair”, Compute Effects on “Low” and SSAO on “Good”. Not using any anti-aliasing (looks sharp enough).

My FPS results are as follows:
Zereth Mortis: 130-144 FPS
Revendreth: 130-144 FPS
Maldraxxus: 90-130 FPS
Ardenweald: around 100-120 FPS with occasional dips to 70
Bastion: around 48-112 FPS

Oribos: upstairs on the flight master floor ± 48 FPS, the main floor fluctuates between 60 to 120 FPS.

Heart of the Forest: the center area indoors around 60 FPS but as soon as you enter another room it’s back to 130-140 again.

I do run quite a lot of addons, notably ATT (All The Things) and TRP (Total Roleplay) which are known to affect performance.

Now something about FSR, because it puzzles me a little. I’m playing in full 4K (3840x2160) as mentioned earlier, with resolution scale set to 100%. On the iMac (Radeon) I used to set it to 50% and FSR did the rest. However, on the Mac Studio FSR doesn’t seem to do anything. When I set res scale to 50%, it looks far more blurry. Turns out FSR is disabled by default, and enabling it doesn’t improve anything.

The Ambient Occlusion Type (Advanced tab) was set to ASSAO per default (instead of FSR), and the Resample Quality to Point (instead of FSR). However, when changing both to FSR I see no difference. Is FSR only a Radeon thing?

Oddly enough the Resample Sharpness slider is still enabled and on 0.2 (per default) but adjusting that doesn’t seem to change anything either. Nor does my FPS improve.

Anyway, I’m happy with how it runs, a huge upgrade for anyone coming from an Intel Mac.

(edit: changed Bastion performance. it was stuck at 48 FPS at first but seems a glitch, the other day it was 112 again. Depends on the area it seems)

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Two things.

ASSAO versus AMD CACAO is not related to FSR. the CACAO is a fork of ASSAO by AMD that adds more effects and generally better performance on newer hardware.

FSR is any gpu and I use it exclusively on my M1 Max. The fact you can’t get it working is actually puzzling.

You’d definitely be able to squeeze more ultra settings easily if you can figure out why FSR isn’t working. It’s possible you have some other cvars disabled that it relies on. maybe you copied config from another mac or something? I’d be curious if you dump your config.wtf file and redid your settings again if you could get it to behave. Of course change resampling from point to FSR. You should be able to run ultra everything else easily except for compute which I’d honestly leave off. compute easilly chops up to 20-40fps off in zones like ardenweald for a little bit of extra volumetric fog/mist. it’s a very pricy setting with almost no gain similar to RTX on windows (you genuinely have to squint and zoom in to notice what RTX is doing yet it halves performance despite the fact in wow it’s only supported for only some lighting and shadows sources)

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Thanks for your reply. I finally got FSR working correctly now! I did start out with a fresh .WTF. I guess something went glitchy after fiddling too much with the settings.

FPS in Oribos and Elysian Hold improved dramatically right away, without noticing any loss in quality. It’s working great now. Pfew!

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yep, I know what my max can do, your ultra should be able to do even better…

using FSR you should have almost no issue locking in great fps with everything on ultra (minus compute, that will still take large hits in ardenweald, mechagon, and a few other places making extreme heavy use of compute shaders)

I’d be curious about your new numbers