World of Warcraft on Mac: Benchmarks & How to Download

World of Warcraft needs no introduction. Referred to as WoW by its hardcore fans, World of Warcraft isn’t only the most famous MMORPG ever created; it’s one of the most popular games in history.

WoW may have lost subscribers compared to its heyday, but make no mistake, WoW is still one of the best MMORPG Mac games available today.

But how well can your Mac run WoW? How good is its native version? Can it run on M1 Macs?

Can you play World of Warcraft on Mac?

You can absolutely play World of Warcraft on your Mac, and that includes Intel and M1 Models. In fact, World of Warcraft is one of the few AAA games that support M1 Macs with a native ARM Apple Silicon version.

It is worth mentioning that Blizzard has always delivered stellar Mac support for World of Warcraft (too bad that can’t be said for Overwatch). On top of being among the first developers to support Apple’s then-new Metal graphics API (which made the game 61% faster compared to its OpenGL version), it was also one of the first to support M1s natively.

Bottom line: WoW runs extremely smoothly on modern Macs, including MacBook Airs and Mac Minis. We’ll share real-world benchmarks on M1 and Intel machines below.

Art	Game	Genre	64-bit?	64-bit	API	M1 Support
	World of Warcraft	MMO	Yes		Metal	Native

WoW on Mac: Everything you need to know

World of Warcraft tells the story of the conflict between the Alliance and the Horde. Orcs vs. humans, undead vs. night elves, and so on. As a new player, you’ll get to choose a side (Alliance for life!), select a race, and begin your journey from level 1 to 70.

That journey will be full of quests, battlegrounds, dungeons, and raids. And it all takes place in a huge world that still looks great, a feat for a game that runs on an engine created more than a decade ago. That said, if you’re looking for the best-looking MMO, The Elder Scrolls Online may be a better choice.

Competition has never been as fierce as today, SW: TOR and Final Fantasy 14 come to mind, but World of Warcraft remains the most solid and high-quality MMO in the market, with responsive gameplay, addicting leveling, and challenging Raids and PvP. Plus, every new expansion introduces excellent new systems and even streamlines the core game to make it even better. And that promises to be the case for Dragonflight, the game’s next expansion.

World of Warcraft Dragonflight on Mac

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, the latest Expansion

Expected November 28, 2022, Dragonflight comes with a laundry list of new features, zones, and quests you would expect from a WoW expansion. But in this case, there will be a new playable race and class, and perhaps more notably, Dragonflight will introduce Dragonriding! These and the many other new features should help revitalize the endgame formula. And on top of it all, Dragonflight promises to improve some of the core mechanics in the game.

For example, instead of increasing the level cap again, this time, it was reduced to a maximum of 60 levels. Each level should now provide more meaningful increases in progress and power and streamlines the entire experience.

World of Warcraft Mac requirements

These are the game’s official Mac requirements:

⚠️ Note that requirements are higher than for the previous vanilla World of Warcraft.

Into MMOs? These are our favorites:

Game	★ Best Overall	Runner-Up	Best Value
	World of Warcraft	Final Fantasy 14	ESO
Model	Subscription-based	Subscription-based	Pay once
Latest release	2020	2019	2020
Metascore	88	90	80
Our rating	★★★★★ Full Review	★★★★★ Full Review	★★★★☆ Full Review
Requirements	Medium	Medium	Medium
Check Price	Official Website	Official Website	Humble Bundle

How to Play World of Warcraft on Mac

As mentioned before, World of Warcraft runs natively on Mac, and that includes Intel-based and M1 Macs. Therefore, we won’t waste your time talking about Parallels, Crossover (both excellent tools, but only useful for Windows-exclusive games…), or Streaming services (this has to be said, as some guides spend entire pages talking about streaming WoW on Mac).

World of Warcraft on M1 Mac

Can your Mac run World of Warcraft? Benchmarks!

These are the World of Warcraft M1 benchmarks we have gathered so far:

As a reminder, this is how we describe the different levels of performance:

• Below 20 FPS: Unplayable: Laggy gameplay, full of stutters and slowdowns.
• 20-30 FPS: Borderline: Can be OK in slow-paced games. Still, not optimal.
• 30-45 FPS: Playable: Acceptable for most (most gaming consoles do this).
• 45-60 FPS: Smooth: Fluid gameplay, with no perceivable stutters.
• 60+ FPS: Very Smooth: For hardcore and professional players, a luxury for most.

Intel benchmarks

These are some of our Intel-based benchmark results:

We tested WoW on the following Intel-based Macs:

• 13-inch MacBook Pro (2016): 2.0 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, Intel Iris Graphics 540 (1.5GB)
• 27-inch iMac (5K, 2014): 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, AMD Radeon R9 M290X (2GB)
• 13-inch MacBook Pro (2013): 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5, 4 GB RAM, Intel Iris 5100 (1.5GB)

M1 VS Intel performance

How does World of Warcraft run on M1 Macs compared to equivalent Intel Macs?

Plus, keep in mind that frames were locked to 60 FPS maximum on the M1 MacBook Air! Otherwise, it would have melted the 13-inch MacBook Pro even more. Our tests running the game at higher settings and resolutions are proof of how fast M1 Macs can be compared to their Intel-based counterparts!

Unsurprisingly, M1 Macs can run the game so much better. In fact, even the base M1 MacBook Air can run the game faster than much more expensive MacBook Pros.

Apple didn’t hesitate to call them revolutionary when they were first revealed. Apple can be overly optimistic when revealing new products, but this time they were right. M1 Macs are nothing short of impressive, as they are able to run games significantly better than their Intel-based counterparts. And this applies to all games, even those that do not have a native M1 version yet.

Can my Mac run World of Warcraft?

If you have an M1 or M2 Mac, then you definitely can. As simple as that.

If you still have an older Intel-based, however, your mileage will vary. As you can see from the graph above, the game runs great on all three Intel Macs, including our 2013 13-inch MacBook Pro.

PS: 35.5 FPS on a 6-year-old machine with integrated graphics is respectable, especially for an MMO.

World of Warcraft is a forgiving game that should run on most modern Macs. If you have a high-end Mac, be it a 15-inch MacBook Pro, an iMac, or any machine with dedicated graphics, you should be able to run it on high settings and at least 1080p resolution.

Can you play World of Warcraft on a MacBook?

If you happen to have an older MacBook, say an Intel 13-inch MacBook Pro with integrated graphics, you should still be able to easily run this game.

Our 2016 13-inch MBP can run the game at a comfortable 78.4 FPS. As long as your MBP is from 2015 or newer, rest assured it will run World of Warcraft without breaking a sweat.

But what if you have an older MacBook?

This section is usually where it gets tricky, as older Macs offer a very limited gaming performance. In this case, however, even our older 2013 13-inch MBP runs World of Warcraft just fine at 35.5 FPS.

If you’re worried your Mac is too old to play this game, don’t worry. World of Warcraft on Mac is a well-optimized game that makes great use of MacOS’s latest technologies (Metal 2.0) and should run on virtually any Mac from 2012 onward.

Testing Conditions: How we benchmarked World of Warcraft on Mac

World of Warcraft may be over ten years old, but the game has seen its fair share of graphical upgrades over the years. Plus, MMOs have always been surprisingly demanding, not because of the levels of detail required but because of the sheer size of their worlds.

We tested all Intel machines using the following settings:

All benchmarks consisted of 5 minutes of real-time gameplay in an open area, running around and killing everything in sight. We prefer to test games outdoors because they tend to be more demanding and taxing than indoors.

For the record, Medium settings and 1280×800 resolution may seem low, but it’s the best compromise when testing both high-end and low-end older models.

World of Warcraft Mac download

You can download World of Warcraft from the following digital stores:

• Battle.net