Even taking the latest Intel has to offer with the Core Ultra 9 185H in a system with active cooling and putting it up against the fanless model of the M1 MacBo

Even taking the latest Intel has to offer with the Core Ultra 9 185H in a system with active cooling and putting it up against the fanless model of the M1 MacBook Air comes out equal in performance at more than triple the power usage - 3 years after the fact. It's got nothing to do with a feedback loop, there is less cooling capacity and not even a fan on the Apple model, the fan wasn't somehow needed for the performance level. Not that a conspiracy of Apple to run all their MacBooks like shit for many years prior to switching all to make Intel look bad is a bit ludicrous - if the problem was ever that the fans weren't on enough they would have just turned them up. Turns out, they can remove them instead! The one place I agree with you is in the > ~16 core space (Server style) with TBs of RAM, where total performance density is more important than power, they don't bother to really compete. Where I differ slightly is I don't think there is anything about the technical design that prevents this, just look how Epyc trounced Intel in the space by using a bunch of 8 core chip modules instead of building a monolith, rather they just don't have interest in serving that space. If Apple was able to turn a phone chip into something with the multicore performance of a 24 core 13900k it doesn't exactly scream "architectural limitation" to me.