Are Apple computers good with gaming?

Updated: 06/30/2020 by Computer Hope
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Apple computers (Macs) are great for a lot of applications. They are a popular choice for many people (especially amongst the design community) due to their consistency, aesthetics, usability, and legacy. Over the years, Mac desktop computers (iMacs) have started to include discrete GPUs, also known as video cards, which drastically improved gaming performance. However, we'd still recommend a PC for gaming for the reasons mentioned below.

Game availability

Although more game companies are releasing their games as hybrid games, meaning they'll work for both the PC and Mac, the vast majority of games are published for PCs running Windows. Sometimes, you could be waiting months or years before it becomes available for the Mac. For example, Half-Life 2, a popular FPS (frames per second) game, was released for the PC on November 16, 2004, but was not officially ported to the Mac until May 26, 2010.

Apple computers with Boot Camp can run Windows and, in most cases, Windows games. However, there's never a guarantee this will work, and you may encounter problems or performance issues, which are not often supported by developers.

Hardware and upgrades

Apple computers do have a few upgrade options. However, compared to the PC, those options are next to none and often more expensive. For example, if you want a better video card, a PC has several options, whereas a specific Mac usually only has two or three choices. Furthermore, Macs, with respect to hardware, are more expensive as far as performance per dollar is concerned.

Performance and price

Apple computers have great performance, but, as mentioned in the previous section, their performance per dollar isn't great. Similar hardware generally costs less than half the price when buying a PC. Furthermore, with the hardware options available for the PC and the overclocking options, Macs fall short in this department. In competitive gaming, to get the most frames per second, PC is the way to go.