Apple's CPUs do very well in sustained performance. They fit 8 high-performance CPUs and 2 efficiency cores into a 40w peak power envelope while hitting peak cl

Apple's CPUs do very well in sustained performance. They fit 8 high-performance CPUs and 2 efficiency cores into a 40w peak power envelope while hitting peak clockspeeds (that 40w includes all the IO, mostly idling GPU, idling NPU, SSD controller, etc). Based on M2, their new chip should be 3.4-3.5GHz with 4 efficiency cores that get 30-40% better IPC all within that same power envelope. AMD puts 96 cores into a 360w TDP (not counting spikes that go higher than that) at 3.6GHz. Apple could most likely fit 72 high-performance cores and 36 more efficiency cores into that same 360w TDP. Given that AMD's chips require much higher clockspeeds to hit the same total performance (nearly 5GHz for Zen 3 to match a 3.2GHz M1), the final product from AMD would likely be quite a bit slower overall. I believe the real reason for the Mac Pro not hitting the market is their insistence on unified memory. At that size, unified memory and controlling latencies explodes in complexity. Even worse, the Mac Studio already appeals to most of the higher-end market meaning this $20-50k system probably doesn't have very many buyers either. They could sell such a product in the server market, but they left that market years ago and the reinvestment costs would be massive and very high-risk.