Intel Macs can run practically anything. Mine had a triple-boot between macOS, Windows and Arch Linux, back when that kind of thing was possible.

Apple's really cut off gaming for good. My only hope is that someone ports FEX/Proton to macOS, or finds a way to get it running with proper hardware acceleration.

Why? I can upgrade, that's not a problem. I'm just saying macOS works fine so far, almost all of the software works too. But I see increasing amount of announcements like this one suggesting that I'll have to replace hardware to get the latest versions. So I guess I will do that only to be able to use that software, not to get better performance.