Solved
What MacBook should I get for the Sims 4?
I’m thinking about getting a new MacBook for school next week but I also want to play the Sims 4 on it. I used to use an Acer Aspire A315-42 and it was pretty slow. I want to get a new laptop that works pretty fast even with CC. Would a Pro work be faster than an Air? Would an M3 Max be better than M3 Pro? Thanks for all the suggestions!
- @corasmiracles
Thanks 🙂 I'm in the UK so converted your budget to around £1,700 and used the UK store for comparison.
I personally would always go for the MacBook Pro for one main reason, it has fans to help cool the Mac whereas the MacBook Air doesn't. Your Mac will get hot whilst playing, even though the Apple silicon (M series) chips are incredibly efficient. When it gets hot fans will kick in to help cool it. If there isn't a fan the operating system will throttle power to the game to prevent overheating which may cause lag in-game. This happens on all machines but will be more prevalent on a fanless machine. Having said that, I have the first generation M1 MacBook Air and it plays the game well. I also have the current 16" MacBook Pro M3 Max and the game runs amazingly well.
Your budget covers the entry level 14" M3 MacBook Pro which has one fan. https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/14-inch-space-grey-apple-m3-chip-with-8-core-cpu-and-10-core-gpu-8gb-memory-512gb If you can stretch to upping the unified memory from 8GB to 16GB you should absolutely do it.
For the same price you could get the 15" M3 MacBook Air with 16GB memory but it is fanless and will not output as much power.
Or you could go down the refurbished route. Apple sell refurbed machines on their website https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/refurbished/mac/macbook-pro This machine in particular would be a great buy and more powerful than the brand new one https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/FRX33B/A/refurbished-14-inch-macbook-pro-apple-m3-pro-chip-with-11%E2%80%91core-cpu-and-14%E2%80%91core-gpu-space-black?fnode=f5622af699288fb08e5d9149963fbbb03a40b3d389aacdd3526fd72bf009f31ef8e87b66f6b08505ccd30dbc20d50cb86eae96e2e340a590dbd84355696f9824b0baa1ccd5a0a73eb041e2562cd0fb09
