The new Apple MacBook Air with M3 brings good gaming performance, but without achieving sensational results.
Presented in October last year, the new Apple M3 processor equipped on the MacBook Air is not too dissimilar from its predecessor in terms of design, but offers some important innovations starting from the innovative 3 nm production process, with some features designed to improve quality in gaming such as support for Ray Tracing and mesh shading via hardware.
But how does the Apple chip actually behave and what is the real gaming performance of the MacBook Air M3? Let's discover the first benchmarks.
Triple A with some compromises
The MacBook Air M3 offers a basic configuration with 8 GB of UMA RAMpotentially exploitable by developers who can use it as VRAM: the GPU in fact features a double configuration with 8 and 10 cores with “Dynamic Caching” technology which allows you to allocate memory as needed.
Apple's ultra-thin device also does not include the use of a fan system, a factor that could affect performance, especially with the most resource-hungry games.
As he reported YouTuber Dave2Dwho ran some tests on the laptop, to be able to play decently with a MacBook Air M3 you have to compromise with resolution and details: to stay above the 30 FPS threshold you need lower the resolution to 1080pcompared to the native 2880 x 1864 pixels.
Test numbers
With 1080p resolution and “low” details, Dave2D's tests reported interesting numbers: Baldur's Gate 3 recorded an average of 37 FPS, Death Stranding reached 55 FPS, No Man's Sky touched 60 FPS, while the best results they were reached by Shadow of the Tomb Raider with 83 FPS.
Unfortunately the YouTuber did not specify the use of upscaling technology Apple MetalFX and we cannot therefore have feedback on the quality of the Apple algorithm.
In short, MacBook Air with M3 is definitely not a device aimed at gamers, but it can still offer decent gaming quality as long as you make compromises.
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