Mac Gaming Revisitied

zero comment

Apple Gaming My Build

I’m back for another Gaming performance post. This is the grandaddy of them all between a very similar card in the Radeon RX 570 and the Radeon Pro 580X (found in the 2019 iMac). First, here are the test systems used in this set of benchmarks:

Test systems:

iMac
Intel Core i9-9900k @ 3.6GHz
24GB DDR4 RAM @ 2666MHz
Apple Q370 Motherboard
Apple 2TB Fusion Drive (128GB SSD + 2GB HDD)
AMD Radeon Pro 580X GPU (8GB VRAM)
Apple PSU (unknown wattage)
Apple 5k IPS Monitor @ 60Hz (Games are running at 1080p)
Windows 10 Version 2004

PC
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X @ 3.95GHz (OC)
16GB DDR4 RAM @ 2933MHz
MSi B450M Gaming Plus Motherboard
WD NVMe SSD 256GB + 1TB WD Blue HDD
AMD RX570 (Power Color Red Dragon) GPU (4GB VRAM)
Enermax Revolution Xt 650W 80Plus Gold PSU
MSi MAG24C 1080p Monitor @ 144Hz
Windows 10 Version 2004

So, without further ado, here are the numbers….

ScreenShot2020-09-27at3.03.34PM-2020-09-27-13-24.png

In most cases, the iMac keeps up with the Custom Gaming PC using the RX570 which is still a great card for entry-level 1080p gaming. There is a big difference in CPU performance between the two systems, however, CPU did not come into play very much in any of these tests. For the most part, all tests show that the game is 100% GPU Bound. That’s not to say that the 1600X is holding the RX570 back, but realistically, this is not true as the RX570 is not really fast enough to bottleneck the CPU,. Conversely, it could be that the Radeon Pro 580X is being helped out by the i9-9900k. Perhaps, but again in all tests, the GPU is shown at 100% GPU bound with little help from the CPU.

This goes to show that both machines are highly capable of producing decent frame rates on High and Ultra. I did not bother with Medium or lower. I think that only Shadow of the Tomb Raider would benefit greatly from moving down to a lower quality setting and maybe Gears of War 5, but both games are pretty playable on High settings. Ultra might be pushing it just a bit.

World War Z seems to be the oddball here with the really poor performance of the Radeon Pro 580x as compared to the RX570.

Maybe I have beat this horse into the ground and this is the last I am going to post about it. I am hoping that with the coming of “Big Navi” that the entry-level AMD cards are what are the current middle-level cards. This will boost performance greatly and will leave this iMac in the dust. The 2020 iMac has much better graphics options and I would love to compare the 2020 iMac with the Radeon Pro 5700XT with a gaming PC with the Radeon 5700XT. Perhaps one day in the distant future I can do so, but for now, these are the machine I have and I am happy to be gaming on them. If you have a 2019 iMac with the Radeon Pro 580X, install Windows 10 and game on it. Don’t let the techies of YouTube discourage you with the “Macs can’t game”. They can. They can do it well.

Individual Results

iMac 1080p High

F1 2019: 126FPS