f efficiency and battery life
are the Mac’s killer weapons,
gaming is the PC’s unconquered
territory. There’s no reason why
the Mac can’t be a great gaming
platform. Apple could open up
support for every GPU vendor in
future Macs or create its own high-
performance gaming graphics.
But even if that happened, a bigger
problem would remain. The Mac’s
gaming catalog doesn’t compare
with the PC’s and for good reason.
It can cost tens or even hundreds
of millions of dollars to develop a
top-quality game. To have a hope of
clawing that investment back, you
need the largest possible customer
base. And that’s not the Mac.
Of course, development costs
can be shared across platforms.
It won’t cost $100 million to port a
Sony PS5 or PC game to the Mac.
But so few gamers use Macs, even
the relatively modest cost of porting
a title over to Mac isn’t viable.
At least some of the explanation
for that is a lack of support and
enthusiasm from Apple. Arguably,
it does so well from gaming on
iPhones and iPads, it scarcely
needs to worry about gaming on the
Mac. But whatever the reason, the
overall conclusion is the same. If
you’re even remotely serious about
gaming, you want a PC, not a Mac.or the most part, this
comparison is a no-brainer.
By simple dint of being less popular
than PCs, Macs have always been
less of a target for bad guys creating
malware and other exploits.
However, it’s also true that
Apple has better control over the
whole hardware and software
stack, thanks to combining the two
in a limited number of in-house
configurations. So, Macs are
generally cleaner and tighter whenGAMING
SECURITY & STABILITY
I
F
WINNER
It’s absolutely
no contest.it comes to vulnerabilities, even
before the question of popularity.
To give credit where it’s due,
Microsoft is far more proactive with
security than it used to be, having
introduced features including
Windows Defender updates and
anti-ransomware measures.
Equally, Macs are far from
invulnerable to viruses, spyware,
botnets, and the like. Both Macs and
PCs are available with fingerprint
sign-in, while PCs also support the
Windows Hello suite of biometrics
including facial recognition and
iris scanning, albeit the latter is
rarely implemented. Likewise, both
operating systems offer built-in
VPN support, so that isn’t much of a
differentiator.
As for stability, that tighter Apple
control over software and hardware
configurations really pays dividends
here. Optimizing the almost infinite
array of PC hardware for stability
is a task that’s orders of magnitude
more difficult than ironing out the
bugs from a handful of retail Mac
systems. Even Microsoft’s own
Surface PCs are more prone to
hanging than Macs.
Of course, when it comes to both
reliability and security, PC users
have the option of running Linux as
an alternative operating system.
But that makes for a totally different
proposition that’s arguably separate
from the classic PC versus Mac
comparison.WINNER
Partly by design,
partly due to
circumstance,
Macs are safer
and more
stable.PCs such as
the Alienware
Aurora R13 are
untouchable
for gaming.The Apple M1 Max is an incredible mobile chip,
but it has a tougher time competing with
the fastest desktop CPUs.PC vs Mac
54 MAXIMU MPC APR 2022
© DELL ALIENWARE, APPLE