I use my home computer for work & leisure and it’s time for an upgrade. I need 64 GB RAM for work, so the Mac mini is out. I am going to buy one of the new Mac Studios. The bottom-of-the-line M2 Max with 12-core CPU and 30-core GPU should be adequate for my work, but I want something that can run WoW well and will continue to run WoW well for several years.
I currently play on a 2560x1440 monitor, but I may get an Apple Studio Display in the future.
I also currently play with most graphics settings maxed and would love to continue to do so.
I found this info about the M1 Ultra Studio with 20-core CPU and 48-core GPU: Mac Studio 4k benchmarks (or: Is it fast?)
Based on those results, I’m thinking I may want at least the M2 Ultra with 24-core CPU and 60-core GPU so that I don’t have to start turning down my graphics settings in just another expansion or two, but it’s hard to tell if that’s really necessary. M1 and M2 are similar but not the same.
Does anyone have experience playing WoW on M2 Max, and can speak to frame rates at max settings in places like Ardenweald?
I know there are some unknown variables such as macOS Sonoma with its Game mode, but any information about WoW on M2 Max (including whether it is the 30 or 38-core GPU) would be helpful.
I am currently running the Mac Studio M1 Max (maxed 32GB) with everything on high settings except compute off on QHD and running great, excepts raids do have a penalty though from what I’ve heard that is more a optimisation thingie than performance… It seems to go better with Sonoma and game mode. I will be receiving the M2 Max 38/64GB next week so will let you know. I would personally say spend those few extra bucks for the GPU cores, especially if you’re planning not to upgrade for years.
The 30 GPU cores would be faster I think to the M1 Max with 32 cores or better but $200 bucks should be worth the extra cores.
The M1 Ultra did suffer from some buffer memory issues hence why more cores didn’t really boosted the performance . Plus the dev team needs to make use of all the extra threads and such.
I would love to hear what results you get with the M2 Max 38/64GB. Thanks!
if i got a studio, i’d only get ultra, cause i’d want double the gpu for gaming, especially now that we have more games we can play through porting kit like diablo 4, cyberpunk 2077, elden ring, etc just to name a few. you throw that much in there and suddenly more gpu cores is way more lucratrive.
the extra cpu cores won’t help gaming at all. there will be almost no single or small multi core gains. only pro apps will really use 24 cores. but those gpu cores aggregate into a single gpu.
in fact if I could afford it, i’d get a 76 graphic core ultra…but not being able to afford it this year is probably better long term anyways. M3 will be a much larger leap than M2 was over m1, since it’ll be 3nm process. i expect m3 to thoroughly stomp m2 and m1…but if you need a system THIS year. yeah I’d get M2 Ultra 76 because mac gaming has a positive future.
Thanks, Omegal. Is your advice based on experience playing WoW on M-series chips, or purely theoretical?
I actually don’t play any games more graphically intensive than WoW. I only have a few hours to game per week, and I play WoW with family, so I’m unlikely to start playing something else.
I hear what you’re saying about the M3, but I’m currently using a 2013 Mac Pro with an eGPU for work & play, and that’s been an end-of-life device since October. I would have replaced it last fall, but I wanted to see the price & specs of the Apple silicon Mac Pro before I spent several thousand on a Studio.
Given that he’s one of the main authors of Deadly Boss Mods and plays WoW both for pleasure and to test the addons, I would venture to say he’s speaking from experience.
You see the thing with Apple’s machines, all of them, is that you have to buy the best you can afford at the time of purchase. You can’t upgrade it later. With the exception of the Mac Pro, even the internal storage is set in stone once you’ve finalized your order. So whatever generation Mac you buy into, buy as hard into it as you can to give your machine as long a life as possible. I hate sounding like a complete shill trying to upsell, because I loathe telling people that’s what they should do, but you really should get the best GPU and as much RAM/storage space as you can afford. You can skimp on internal storage and use external USB-C/Thunderbolt 3/4 drives, but CPU+GPU and RAM you are stuck with whatever your order is set to. Choose wisely.
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I my be misremembering things, but when the M1 machines were released, weren’t there several comments that most of the load in WoW was being carried by the CPU cores because Blizzard hadn’t put in the work to take advantage of Metal performance on the GPU cores?
Did I get that wrong, or has something changed?
And I certainly hope that Mac gaming is about to get a lot better, but Miss Van Pelt has yanked that football away so many times that I have to be a little skeptical, especially as it depends on outfits like Blizzard hiring Mac-knowledgeable coders and QA people. But I hear good things about the game porting kit, so I’ll keep all moveable parts crossed as I run up to make that place kick.
gpu cores don’t matter, metal api just reports 1 gpu and tasks the cores on it’s own, blizzard and other games have nothing to do with that.
cpu cores on other hand DO have to be threaded by game devs cause the OS does NOT auto task that and wow will utilize up to 8 cores in theory but in reality it kinda only presses 2-4 at best so on an ultra you’ll literally have 20 idle cores. I doubt you’d see any percent difference between base M1/M2 vs a fully loaded ultra. 8 cores, 24 cores, it’s all the same outside of memory bandwidth which would have more affect on ram and vram speed from unified architecture. But yeah gpu cores being increased will have most gain in wow on apple silicon, and second best is just more memory.
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Thanks for the clear reply.
Received it yesterday M2 Max 64GB/12/36/1TB and it’s really fast and also more quiet as they turned down the fans from 1300 rpm to 1000 rpm which is not noticeable anymore.
Anymore yesterday evening I tried the LFR and Valdrakken and both had way more performance than my M1 Max 32GB/10/32/1TB like they advertise 30% more GPU power.
Which is pretty nice in raid or Valdrakken where performance is lacking sometimes and now it’s just good. That is more a optimising issue than hardware but now solved with hardware 
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Thanks, Epoeu! I’m assuming you are using the same settings you mentioned previously, “everything on high settings except compute off on QHD.” Would you be willing to try it on ultra with compute off and no frame rate cap, and let me know what your frame rates are in Valdrakken or Ardenweald? Raid or BG frame rates would be of interest to me, too, if you happen to get that info, but I’m not going to ask you to go out of your way to get that data.
Thanks again for reporting back!
Yeah on QHD everything on high and even compute on low now, seems the M2 is a tad better with compute. In the caverns you actually have some extra graphic detail with compute it.
I am not using FSR as my eyes are too picky
In a busy Valdrakken fps is around 60fps but all on high. I did ultra it’s about the same but drops sometimes from 68 to 52fps…
I am going to raid with the guild tomorrow, LFR was excellent in FPS but somehow raiding with gulides and Discord was last week really bad somehow. I will edit my post.
Anyways in general it just feels smoother, I am using the Asus PG27AQDM so higher than 100 fps is amazing which in normal world or dungeon you have with this system.
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Yeah i imagine m2 max does pretty well
I could never justify upgrading my m1 max to m2 max alone. I’d have to go to ultra at minimum and then if i went that far i’d go 76 gpu not 60. but I’m still gonna skip m2, because it’s only an incremental gain over m1, but m3 will be a massive gain since it’ll be 3nm process (both m1 and m2 are 5nm). my buyers advice is mainly unless you’re wealthy, if you already have m1, skip m2. but if you do NOT have m1, then m2 is a good place to buy in if you’re really in need of new hardware now.
In fact, best buy has a really nice 36 month financing option where you can own an M2 max or even ultra studio for very little a month.
I’ll go Ultra with the M3 and the meantime enjoy the M2 Max. For me the upgrade is really cheap but yeah usually upgrading each year is not the greatest idea.
Anyways raid performance with the guild was bad again, not sure what the issue is there as LFR seems to perform better. But I do also a lot of Windows users complaining so guess it something in the WoW side not that great…
I just got a Mac Studio, M2 Max, with 38 GPU cores and 64 GB. Would love to tell you how WoW runs, but it won’t install. Battle.net appears to be broken right now (at least when attempting to install from scratch on a new Mac).
do you have rosetta installed?
edit: ah nvm, I see this is a system wide issue with the b net app. oh well.
Please post here when this gets resolved, thanks.
I appreciate the thought, but I’m going to order exactly that machine right now based on Epoeu’s results. I’m sorry you can’t install WoW, though. Maybe you can transfer the installation from another computer where it is already installed?
Got WoW working on my Mac Studio (M2 Max). Battle.net seems to be broken in a way that prevents new installs, but I was able to copy the entire World of Warcraft folder over from my iMac, and after that, Battle.net is able to update it normally.
After playing with it for a bit, I found it runs very well (maintains 60 fps) with these settings:
Display Mode: Fullscreen (Windowed)
Resolution: 5120×2880
Render Scale: 3072×1728 (60%)
Vertical Sync: Enabled
Anti-Aliasing: None
All graphics settings maxed, except Shadow Quality (Ultra) and Compute Effects (High).
View Distance: 10
Environment Detail: 5 (can be increased, but unnecessary)
Ground Clutter: 10
Advanced:
Triple Buffering: Off (doesn’t seem to improve anything)
Texture Filtering: 16x Anisotropic
Ambient Occlusion: ASSAO
Resample Quality: Fidelity FX Super Resolution 1.0 (this makes a big difference in sharpness)
I think if you really care about graphics quality, and can afford it, the M2 Ultra is probably worth the upgrade. I went with the M2 Max because it’s more than powerful enough, and I’d rather put that extra money toward a proper gaming PC (eventually, maybe).
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I would turn on triple buffering to prevent stuttering and the M2 Max is better with compute, best to turn it down to good or low.
Ultra should be awesome for WoW but yeah expensive for only that but it is your money 
Also I would personally go for a screen with 100fps + and VRR, but that is just me, I am the 2k guy I will go back to 4K when there is OLED 4K 120HZ+ screen and that will need an M3 Max or Ultra 
But also what Omega mentioned in a few other topics, WoW can be optimised and improved in many ways but they lack personal and such, but maybe in the future hopefully as the hardware should really be enough for this engine.