From what I've seen, they aren't. At the same node, and same wattage per core, a Ryzen low-power core has better performance per watt and leagues more I/O. That was back in the iPhone X days, I don't think it's gotten any better since
Personally, I'm very skeptical on Apple beating AMD.
I think its partly their desire to add their own IP (use of Apple Silicon as the name is probably revealing of how they think of the new chips) was probably decisive in making the move from x86.
Plus probably still cheaper than any x86 alternative.
It's probably also a great way to avoid head-to-head competition.
Apple marketing always reminded me of how for decades, Rolls-Royce advertisements never would explicitly say things like the engine horsepower and displacement-- just "ample."
Now it will be that much easier to dodge performance questions. "Our machines are not built to run (mainstream software or game), so of course the performance is sketchy in the emulation penalty box. Just run the seven pieces of native MacOS software and it really flies."
They have some history with this with PowerPC but it really doesn't explain why they would make such a move now as they are already using x86 (if it is superior) - makes no sense to put themselves at a disadvantage just to be able to dodge performance questions.
Apple is all about mobile now, even for computers. So they don’t care that AMD has great desktop CPUs, they need great mobile (laptop) CPUs too. The Ryzen 4750U is a great laptop chip, but I can pretty much guarantee that in perf/watt the new Apple Silicon CPUs will blow them out of the water.
Completely agree and it's not just about CPU it's about having a great power efficient GPU and about being able to do things with the neural engine for example that would not be possible on an x86 Intel or AMD laptop design.
It's not just Intel's failure. They must think their chips are competitive against AMD's as well (or they're all in on iOS apps on Macs).