The cynical view is that Apple is intentionally misleading customers with their ambiguous graph axes. Another perspective is they’re simply demonstrating the metric they’ve optimized for in the first place.
Have you ever upgraded any components of your Windows desktop (RAM, GPU, CPU, motherboard) or did you discard the entire thing?
$1200 PC vs $1500-$2000 MacBook is really only 300-800 difference, and MacBooks hold their value on the second hand market EXPONENTIALLY better than windows.
So 3-8 years at 100$ a year, but also it’s worth 3x as much as the comparable PC in 5 years
Realistically, you don't need to replace the entire thing. Replace mobo+CPU, GPU, PSU, RAM, case as necessary.
Laptop is a different story. Replacing a desktop with a laptop and then comparing them is not a fair comparison.
I don't think it's misleading anyone to say they're faster, when their on SoC graphics are 4060 level, they definitely are overall.