That second chart with the "amazing" redline is comparing it to 2010 through 2017 era CPUs. Now compare it to a current generation zen3 based $599 AMD CPU in a $350 motherboard with $450 of RAM.
Or a $599 Intel 12th-gen "core" series.
For $3999 nevermind $7999 you can build one real beast of a workstation that fits in a normal midtower ATX case.
They're not vertically integrated, they're sourcing and assembling the same parts you and I could get (and some we can't: they have graphics cards in stock!)
That's for folks that don't need OSX, that like build quality in the form of sturdy, repairable, maintainable tools rather than glossy but glued-together disposable ones, and want Ryzen or Intel performance that will beat a Mac Studio without the hassle.
Just because you can afford an absurd $4000-8000 Apple computer doesn't mean you want to waste your money on it. I have a finite amount of money and choose to spend it on other things.
Apple is fine for like, a $1500 laptop. The macbook air is a fine product.
Not for an actual workstation.
[1] hackintoshes need not apply.
Edit: I'd say that the Ultra is a much better bang for your buck than the Threadripper, unless you absolutely need humongous amounts of RAM or macOS does not work for you.
Over a few years of usage, that cost is not insignificant, especially if you are using air conditioning part or all of the year.
Of course, the argument can be made — and it is not without merit — that power consumption is secondary to performance for a power or professional user. But the low power consumption of M1 series allows Apple to deliver pretty much unprecedented performance for the given size. Ultra offers performance of large workstation tower in more compact form factor than the smallest HTPC. My M1 Max 16" has the performance of a large workstation laptop with the portability and battery life of an ultrabook — and I can use all that performance while working untethered. It's quite interesting to see all these benchmarks where folks show that the latest ALD laptops can marginally outperform the M1 Pro/Max on the desk, under ideal conditions, while in reality the performance will plummet really fast when you actually want to be mobile. In the meantime I enjoy my desktop-level build times while working on my sofa or on the train.
I've had to take frozen peas out of the freezer and rub them desperately against the bottom of my x86 MBP to quickly cool it down enough to use, in order to make important Zoom meetings on time. It totally ruins the peas, and can't be good for the computer!
Even if they were both the same speed, it would still be so much better, just because of how cool it runs. How fast and long it runs on batteries is just icing on the cake of not getting fucked by speedstep's "kernel_task % CPU 798.6" all the time.
PS: I once worked on a project where 10 consultants sat around burning money for over a month because the customer couldn't figure out how to spin up a lab environment. We walked down to the local computer shop across the street, ordered the beefiest Xeon workstation tower we could build, packed it with drives, put VMware ESXi on it, and then the work could finally start. The "research, ordering, build, and troubleshooting" took half a day. It saved hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost time and money.
The power requirements of the machine you describe would easily be more than double that of the Mac, but you probably aren't getting anywhere close to double the performance.
I wish I had a 5950X that requires less power. I don't. I am going to choose this CPU over any mac any day because it's faster. A lot of other CPUs consume less electricity, I don't use them neither. End of the story.
Besides, if you care about performance, you’re going to want to do more than just replace the RAM
Unless you live in a cave and using your excrement as manure I could apply the same logic to your lifestyle.
Realistically the only practical difference is virtue signaling (I've seen a bunch of hipsters bring up these kind of irrelevant talking points while discussing their vacation in some exotic destination 5 minutes later).
And like someone else said, Apple devices are the definition of throwaway consumer products designed for a limited shelf life.