You can check out some benchmarks: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-M4-SoC-analysis-AMD-Intel-and-Qualcomm-currently-don-t-stand-a-chance.839332.0.html https

You can check out some benchmarks: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-M4-SoC-analysis-AMD-Intel-and-Qualcomm-currently-don-t-stand-a-chance.839332.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-M4-SoC-analysis-AMD-Inte... https://www.cpubenchmark.net/laptop.html https://www.cpubenchmark.net/laptop.html It seems like the Apple Silicon chips are generally faster single-core, but a bit slower multi-core. In real life, it will probably depend on how well optimized your compiler (or whatever software) is for Apple Silicon. And native Linux on Apple hardware isn't mature yet, so if you need to virtualize it, it'll be even slower. The advantage of the Macs are generally efficiency (performance per watt, meaning longer battery life and less heat and noise) and build quality, and well, you get a Mac (if you like macOS). If you don't care and just need something to crank out FLOPs, IMO I'd probably just build a desktop and run the workload there and remote into it from a cheap laptop of any sort. If you do get a Thinkpad though, read up on their thermal management and try to get one that doesn't throttle so easily. The X1s I had usually had lower voltage CPUs (less performance) and would throttle even those under load, so they weren't good for long sustained CPU usage. Fine for business use or the occasional `npm install`, but if you're running multi-hour workloads, it will very likely overheat and throttle down. Not sure if their workstation models (the T models and others) are better in this regard; they are generally larger and not as squished together (read: hopefully better cooling/more fans).