Technology

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i7-8700k/16.html

https://www.techpowerup.com/cpu-specs/core-i7-6700k.c1825

Ryzen was not more efficient than skylake. In fact, the 1500x was actually consuming more energy in nT workloads than skylake while performing worse, which is consistent with what I wrote. What Ryzen was REALLY efficient at was being almost as fast as skylake for a fraction of the price.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-M3-Max-16-Core-Processor-Benchmarks-and-Specs.781712.0.html

Will you look at that, in nT workloads the M3 Max is actually less efficient than competitors like the ryzen 7k hs. The first N3 products had less than ideal yields so apple went with a less dense node thus losing the tech advantage for one generation. That can be seen in their laughable nT performance/watt. Design does matter however, and in 1T workloads Apple's very wide design excells by performing very well while consuming lower energy, which is what I've been saying since this thread started.

Not to mention ARM chips which by and large were/are more efficient on the same node than x86 because of their design: ARM chip designers have been doing that efficiency thing since forever, owing to the mobile platform, while desktop designers only got into the game quite late. There's also some wibbles like ARM insn decoding being inherently simpler but big picture that's negligible.

Intel just really, really has a talent for not seeing the writing on the wall while AMD made a habit out of it out of sheer necessity to even survive. Bulldozer nearly killed them (and the idea itself wasn't even bad, it just didn't work out) while Intel is tanking hit after hit after hit.