If you don't have enough ram no processor can save you. And if you aren't running out of ram adding more won't help. The m1 isn't magic and I'm sure it does some things slower than Intel and some things faster. Maybe for your workload or is slower. For the workloads I run (rails apps, postgres) the m1 has almost identical performance to the Intel i9, but is more efficient in terms of battery life.
Some months ago a guy had bricked its own MacBook by running data analysis tools all the day every day, until the ssd finally gave up (and you can’t change that in a macbook pro, it’s soldered).
