M2 MacBook Air ULTIMATE Gaming Review: Budget AAA Gaming!?
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- Опубліковано 25 тра 2024
- Apple's redesigned MacBook Air comes with Apple's new M2 chip which does get quite hot under load, but what about while doing some gaming using different methods including Windows gaming with Crossover!
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Timestamps ⬇️
M2 MacBook Air Gaming Review - 00:00
World of Warcraft (Native) - 01:45
CS:GO (Rosetta) - 07:06
League of Legends (Rosetta) - 08:50
How to Play Windows Games - 10:26
Witcher III (Crossover) - 11:09
GTA V (Crossover) - 15:16
Can the M2 MacBook Air Game? - 16:57
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Get 25% OFF Crossover 21 using code MAXTECH ➡ geni.us/Crossover2023
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Hey Max Tech , make a tutorial on how to run things with crossover. And please test apps like Revit , Autocad , Bluebeam Revu etc. There are a lot of professionals like myself who need these apps but the software providers/makers do not cater for mac users.
Why not test this on your much 'beloved" 13" MBP since it has a fan!
Please do a drop test! I'm worried about my M2 Air!
Max, podrías hacer una comparación del MacBook Pro m1 (2020) vs MacBook Air m2 🤔🤔
Given that it can actually play games while (not charging) and can give it's max potential without draining battery very soon. Makes it even more interesting.
Two things I wanna see now. The thermal pad mod and a cooling stand and vs the m2 pro. A lot of laptop gamers typically use cooling fans
100% what I was thinking.
thermal pad/cooling stands would defeat the purpose of having the Air.... I would pay additional $100 for M2 Macbook pro... don't you think?
@@Lokaminiac disagree; I think apple purposely didn’t ADD proper passive cooling exactly for what you just said. But for a simple non warranty voiding mod- thermal pads and a graphene thin travel stand is totally worth the benefits
@@ryanstanley4391 How does the pad mod not void warranty? You're literally opening it up and modding it. "This warranty doesn't apply ... to a Apple Product that has been modified to alter functionality or capability without the written permission of Apple"
@@tacticalmoose7783 are you asking or complaining? “How does…”, “you’re literally” LOL you’re opening up yes, but you’re only adding pads to bring contact to the back chassis plate.
Next time use Google before you blah blah a comment.
Actually the gaming performance of M-series chips will be the most interesting to watch as that's the field where the ARM architecture has a lot to improve upon
Agreed. It’d be great if apple could fix whatever rift they have with Nvidia. Switch runs @ 7.5 watts in handheld. While it’s not the best performance it’d benefit from apples unified memory.
@@_basedperry Yeah but it is not just Apple job. The developers of the games should also do a lot of optimizations for example support for the metal API and even ARM instruction set support in general. Apple sells a lot of macbooks. Last time I checked they were in 4th place in terms of total sales which is impressive and they have a strong argument for even the first place considering how great their macbooks have become since the ARM era started. But the macbook community is not exactly into gaming and even those who are they use windows machines. So Apple alone is not enough to push faster. Other have to come as well. And even if they come Mental support is unlikely for the most part.
@@davout5775 apple could do a lot one thing that would be massive would be to allow Vulcan and that’s 100% on apple using arm though instead of x86 would also be big to and that’s on game developers.
@@davout5775 nah, its p much all apples fault
Silly question. But with all the games on the App Store what is it about these windows games that presents such a problem? Keep in mind you are talking to a novice here.
I really hope that apple can take greater steps to bringing games to mac.
they removed support for windows and support for intel so no. a Macbook is a professional video and audio editor, nothing more.
Boy will we have a monster that is even bigger than razer
@@light3267 it hurts me deeply cause they could have made the best laptop but just wasted it
Imagine professional gamers streaming with an iMac or a Mac mini😂It will be fking awesome to sponsor them with Apple Pay
@@light3267 actually they are trying to bring games to the mac they just bought Resident evil village recently and are working on No mans sky
well meaning advice: to get power readouts without leaving fullscreen you can SSH into the laptop from another device and use the power monitor from there.
also the reason why the games were stuttering when you were using CrossOver is because the games compile shaders on the fly, and only after they've been compiled once are they cached. during shader compilation performance takes a major hit => stutter
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At the end of the day, Apple is really not made for gamers. It's for people in suits who speak loudly about their stockmarket portfolios in high-end coffee shops.
Lol 😂 Apple cant make it in this Competitive market, here we can't get over 100 fps with a dedicated gpu in RDR2
@@anirbanhalder2130ngl, bitching about not getting over 100 ping is kinda goofy, your eye isnt gonna procesd any difference between anything over 60 fps tbh
@@squishy1523 lol but msi afterburner can easily recognise kiddo...
And spoiled college students chilling in Starbucks all day
@@irgendeinname9256that's what I am
I appreciate uploading in 60fps so we can see the frame drops on our end, good stuff
Right off the bat, the 60fps is a nice touch when doing a gaming vid 😄
Been waiting for this review. Happy it’s finally up!
Am very grateful for your exhaustive coverage of m2. I was going to get a m2 air but your videos made me realize it wasn't for me. Going with a discounted 14" pro instead :). Thanks for helping me make the right decision.
If you can wait then wait for M2 Pro MBP
@@rohittkrrNo because I would have to wait a LONG time before M2 Pro 14" is discounted. However, right now I can get 14" M1 Pro for not much more than a 16gb/512gb M2 Air. When M2 Pro drops it will be significantly more than the 16/512 M2 Air because it won't be discounted right away.
@@rohittkrr in USA the 16/512 M2 Air is the same cost as M1Pro 16/512 MBP. The new M2Pro 14 inch will be launched at $2000 and will take 8-10 months for the price drop.
Thanks So much!!-Really appreciate you creating these great videos!!-This is was such a entertaining video-Keep it up!!.
It was very interesting to see how the game ran on the MacBook Air-It’s good to see simple games running very smoothly-At least we know that it’s not that great for heavier games!!-Thanks so much for these informative videos-Keep it up!!
✊Congrats on 1M subscribers. Your 1 of my fave channels. Keep stepping up, Max. 🙌
The amazing thing about the Apple Silicon Macbook Air is that it's no longer just the "Average User's Mac" it's now your introductory Pro device flexible and powerful enough to give aspiring/beginner media production users a glimpse of how it is to work on their preferred media whether it be video, photo, 3D etc.
You couldn't do that on the old Intel Air. Heck, the old Intel 13 Pro would even give up on you easily on some tasks.
I wouldn’t call late 2020 machines(November 2020) like the M1 air/pro, old. I’ll allow you to call them “older” when we are in late 2023. Truth be told the M1’s will age waaay better than the Intel mac machines and those lasted 5-7 years. How long will the first apple silicon chips last?
I’m assuming you are talking about the older intel MacBooks correct?
@@sammyjammy6647 Was referring to the Intel Macs. The M1s is more than enough for casual media consumption and light-moderate creative work!
@@MrAtthedrivein925 Yes, was referring to Intel Macs. :)
Big congrats on the 1 mil subs, Max Tech team!
With 16 GB Ram, Parallels is also more useful for some games, especially older ones. Crossover is not the only choice.
So proud of MaxTech and even happier to be subscribed to this excellent channel! Congrats on reaching 1 million subscribers! Good fun seeing Vadim gaming 😂
Can you do comparison with the base M2 Air too? Just a user who wants to use the M2 Air for casual gaming and not looking to max out the performance
Appreciate the gaming showcase. Curious how the 14-core GPU M1 Macbook Pro would perform in the same games.
Crossover 22 is in beta right now, and works for even more games.
It is cool that you are finally able to game on the Macbook Air, at least some games that are optimised for M chips. I started gaming on my Intel Macbook Air but oh boy it is not cool, the thing throttles so hard cause of these temperatures. I don't really get how apple is now able to be able to have an fanless design, it just shows how efficient the M Chips are.
Well my m1 air base model get ruined if I play gta on it? I was playing yesterday and it seemed to run fine but I’m not that technical to know the little details can someone help?
Very interesting review, thanks. I was curious how a fanless m2 macbook air would handle that kind load.
WoW could play much better if you tweaked those settings a bit, also gives better frames in full screen vs windowed mode.
this is the video i was waiting for thanks
I'm happy for your first million!
Wondering how the base M1 7core would perform next to the M2 Air, I could see the overall fps being lower but less stuttering due to throttling being less severe on the M1 Air. Would be interesting to see a side by side
over 50% + different
Would my m1 air base model get ruined if I play gta on it? I was playing yesterday and it seemed to run fine but I’m not that technical to know the little details can someone help?
@@rayhanalam3101 you will be fine
@@BoazNGK thanks that’s fine then
great gaming test. thanks for the vid man
please can you also do a video like this with the m2 MacBook Pro, would be interesting to see the differences. Thanks!
The glitches (stuttering) in CSGO don’t go away unless you have a maxed out Mac Studio (or a 1000USD Windows computer). Downgrading the graphics doesn’t work. This is a old/bad port that doesn’t utilize Metal.
Glitches in competitive FPS games are a massive downer and render the game unplayable.
Keep it up, we always wait for your videos
You can buy the 14” MBP from BestBuy for $1700 which is the same price as the M2 MBA in the video.
GZ on 1M subs! Well deserved
Congrats on 1mil!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but CS Go relies on the CPU more than most games. In which case, it should do well on Apple silicon.
Looks like you reached 1M - cnograts!
Finally 😍😍😍😍 waited so long for this video ❤️❤️❤️❤️ thank you very much. Very detailed, I love it
Good job again on testing! Some thoughts: you should add diablo 3 there since it has mac version (I remember you were a D3 player). also, how much difference would be if you run the same tests on M2 Macbook pro? it has fans; hopefully less throttling... Thanks!
Please try Oleophobic coating on the midnight m2 macbook pro to see if the fingerprint magnet problem is resolved, your test will me much appreciated.
Thanks a lot for your review
You reached 1M congrats to you guys you truly deserve it 👏🏽
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Appreciate for covering gaming section.
Finally, the million subscribers you deserve for so long time!
I feel this videos is very crisp than the other. Could you tell me your team have changed the video settings?
NICE!!! You hit 1 mill in subscribers!
I want to get my first MacBook to replace my old windows PC. If I got the MacBook air with 512gb of storage, would that be good enough for things like surfing the web, printing documents, playing some games, and hooking it up to my telescope?
Thanks for the great review video
Congratulation! You hit 1 Million subscribers!
Great video. Honestly I just want my Steam library to be fully compatible then I'm sorted with my MacBook Air M1!
❤️ Congrats on 1 Million Subs ❤️
Most people, even on a PC, run the graphics on WoW at 7 because it's just an older program. My M1 Pro 16" at that with native resolutions runs about 100 FPS average which is more than fast enough even for RAIDs and only about 20 FPS lower than an 2700x/2070 @1440P on 10 on the PC.
Informative and entertaining as usual ☺️☺️
To test WoW, you really need to go to a big city, or better yet, Oribos. Starter zones are not demanding at all for the game.
Just wanted to chime in on the WoW performance. Not all areas of WoW are created equal and the area where you do these test are from the original game and will perform vastly better than any of the newer areas of the game. We aren't talking about a small different but it could go from 60 FPS down to the 20's very quickly. I'm not sure how you would be able to show this without getting someone to let you play on their account, but just something to keep in mind.
Yep. It would have been more interesting to see the performance in the Trade District in Stormwind on a full server with max settings. I'm betting it wouldn't pass 20fps.
You made 1m subs! Awesome guys! Keep the great videos coming :)
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Usually these translation apps remember apis, try running the game two or three more times and see if everything improves
Very impressive performance, I wonder how it would handle windows games on parallels?
Not impressive at all, I can play every game with my ryzen 7 igpu,
@Max Tech I don't suppose you could do a side by side vs the Mac Book Pro M1 14" that you recommend could you for gaming like this?
BTW max, I would like to let you know that there are performance differences between windowed mode and full-screen mode due to various reasons that I don't know. I have tested it. when running the game in unlimited framerate tried on both windowed and full-screen. The full-screen variant tends to provide more framerate while delivering steadier fps. I am not sure if it is the case on the M-series macs as I currently own an intel one and I have no idea if the problem was caused by an unoptimised app/game or the framework that it depends on probably metal or OpenGL/OpenCL (which we both/all knows that it is not real support but a translation layer to metal).
great video as ever! one thing how about adding total war games to your tested games because they are als running nativ on mac
Oh wow. You’re not finished. Thank you! I am actually going to the mall tomorrow. Will watch this before I decide 😂
Contact me for your reward
Can you try to repeat the same benchmarks while the M2 is running in low power mode? Allegedly M2's low power is closer to the original M1 in terms of speed and the heat output is way lower, meaning less throttling.
Would be very interested to see this too
Could you please do a gaming test with the base model?
Love these videos! Good job
Thank you so much 😊
Wow! definitely the M1 pro 14" is the way to go, thanks
The next gen Metal 3 and the improvement of low end Mac graphic. Also capcom is joined to develop native support game , I think after few session, will be much better
Video idea: please do a drop test. This M2 Macbook Air doesn't seem as durable as the old ones!
Finally thank you 🙏
Thanks for the review about gaming! I wonder if Parallels will perform any different than crossover/rosetta? Their website boasts how many games run "perfect"
A bit of casual gaming is nice
I have M2 Air 15" 10 Core, just tried playing Baldurs Gate 3 - and it's overheating like hell! Any ideas on how to optimise for that?
Suggestion..!! I do decent AAA gaming and normal production. Which storage variant I should choose 256gb or 512gb!!
WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU DO A MACBOOK AIR, STUDIO AND/OR PRO WITH LOGIC PRO X. Not everyone games or is video creating.
Would the laptop heat up a lot under the load though? Since it has no fan iirc
I bought my first ever laptop like 6 months ago and it was a €800 hp windows 11, Didn't take me long to switch to a MacBook Air M2 for less, Not interested in gaming anymore but practicality.
Do some videos like this using the thermal pad
Curious to see how only the Ram impact performance on the 256 and 512Gb. Video comparison 256 8gb vs 256 16gb and 512 8gb vs 16gb
This!!! I’m planning on getting a 1TB 10 core 16gb
It would be interesting to see how fast the games run with low power mode enabled.
Briliant! Thanks!
I Personally would like to try btw great video as always
I have an M1 pro 16 inch and thus far the issue with gaming has not been performance, but the major lack of games available. It runs AAA titles at very high settings no problem, but there really aren't any games available natively. I use virtual machines to play older games, but anything made in the past 5 years really needs to be run natively. Sadly I don't think Apple will ever incentivize developers to port their titles to MacOS.
@@accountt I wouldnt buy a PC because I don't usually game, it's just a side benefit of having a powerful computer. Sometimes I'll play older stuff from when I was a kid through VMware (like hitman blood money), but as an engineer I use macOS (and also linux) for my work and also for my hobbies (film/photo + piano music) already. I also just love MacOS in general, and the industrial design of macs.
They're starting to, WWDC was very promising.
@@BenGodot I hope so man, because I'm currently having to play GTA IV through crossover and having MUCH worse performance than this machine is capable of.
It would be amazing to be able to have access to the whole steam library like PC users. We have the hardware to run the games now.
@JG I agree, Apple Silicone do it we just needs devs to back it. Resident Evil Village and No Man's Sky later this year is a hopeful start. The Mac display and speakers are the cherry on top for me for gaming.
this comment aged very well lol
Please make a video how after effects and premiere pro performe in this MacBook Air M2.. please 🙏🙏
I wonder how well this plays when using XBOX Cloud gaming where the games is streamed over the net? My iPad Pro M1 can handle Sniper Elite 5 with no issues at all.
60 Fps!! So cool! Keep the videos like that 🙏🏻
Can you play the games with the fan pad used? I’m wondering how well the games will play.
Woooooo. This is what I was waiting for. Thank u so much for your amazing content. U just earned a subscriber
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Interesting outcomes.
Congrats with 1M :)
Crossover is a dream for gaming on Mac
You can SSH into the laptop from another computer and run asitop since it's a command line application.
Please help with testing the issue as it is almost impossible to test it on site like in an apple store or authorised retail store. THX(even though you might not see this and tested it)
World of Warcraft is a very tough game to measure, especially if you don’t actually have a subscription. When you don’t have a sub, you are limited to early quests. Most people have max level toons and spend most of their time in cities like Oribos or their covenant halls in the current xpac (or in Orgrimmar or Stormwind). On my M1 Max MBP, for instance, I’ll get 30-40 fps in my covenant hall, but over 100 fps in dungeons and raids. Face a wall and your fps spikes up. Turn back around and it drops like a rock. The frame rate is heavily dependent on what other player characters are in the same area. Note that I keep my settings on 7.
A ways to go for Apple for gaming. But it is is getting interesting.
Congrats for the Million suscribers at last!!!
Just buy a desktop PC for games, now that graphics cards are finally reasonably priced. Good review
there’s no point in going over 60fps on the Macbook Air, right? unless you have a external monitor
Hey, where can I get a copy of the powermetrics tool you use for your performance monitoring thanks in advance.
This is why I love Max Tech. Although they are sponsored they still give an honest review.
1M…congrats 🥳🥳🥳
Best channel I've found ever on UA-cam on Apple macbooks...
Love you man....
Very detailed inspection...
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What version of WoW were you testing?
WoW is the only game I’m interested in playing on a mac air. I was curious how it would play on a base version of the laptop (8gb ram, 256gb ssd and no core upgrades) and on low game settings cause you don’t need that high settings in WoW anyway…