Re: Stupid and inefficient
What trailblazing performance? If you're just talking about energy efficiency, then sure, but certainly not in overall performance.
Looking at the new M2 based MacBook Pro, the Mac is still overall slower that the best Intel or AMD based laptops in CPU performance, other than a few outlying functions where Apple have implemented some hardware acceleration in their SoC which doesn't exist in the Intel or AMD parts.
The main benefit the Mac has, is it manages what it does while using much less power than the Intel and AMD systems. To put it another way, Intel and AMD burn a lot more energy to get to that faster performance.
Part of this is of course the architecture, but a big chunk is down to Apple using a more efficient TSMC node, specifically the "Enhanced 5-nanometer" N5P process, whilst Intel and AMD are still on older nodes (and AMD being the only other one using TSMC currently).
Be interesting to see how Intels and AMDs newer chips perform, once chips such as AMDs Zen 4 come out in a month or two, which will also be on TSMCs 5nm node.
Intel have also partnered up with TSMC, and are expected to produce some 3nm CPUs, although not till next year some time.