I have a 10-core CPU with a performance advantage of 23% over an M1 Max in Cinebench R23 (AMD 5800x) and a 1,280 CUDA core GPU (GTX 1060 6GB) that cost a little over $1,000 US total.

UPDATE - Sorry, I originally listed this as a 5900x by accident. I need more sleep.

Cinebench R23 is a worst case scenario for M1 because it doesn't have high core utilization and sits in L2 cache. If you look at a broader set of benchmarks (SPEC) then M1 Max in laptop form is competitive anywhere from a 5800x to a 5950x.

meanwhile geekbench is affected by ram speed

Your setup is also probably 5x larger and uses 100W more power. It's a question of priorities.

I've never talked to someone who was worried about 100 watts give or take in a desktop. The 100 watt difference, if you ran 24/7 is about 26 cents a day. A laptop would be a different story, of course, but these aren't laptops.

As for the footprint, it's usually not enough of a concern at the desktop to double or triple the price to go from a standard mini ATX down to a double height Mac Mini, but I'm sure there are some locations where that would be a concern.

No one outside of SF, Tokyo, & NYC cares about saving power or space for desktops which is why people panned the old garbage can pro. This is a slightly better direction, but I’m still waiting for a slightly more affordable bigger box Mac that isn’t an exorbitant Mac Pro. The old refrigerator models were reasonable. I don’t want an improved Mac garbage can model

I work from home in a 1 bedroom in NYC and a normal sized desktop works just fine under my standing desk with dual monitors here. Even if my PC were Mac Studio sized, I'd have it under my desk to maximize desk space.

I really wonder how many people actually care about saving space with desktops at the expense of everything else.

The 5800X is 8-core, while the 5900X is 12-core.

You may have misread the number of cores on the box when you bought it!

If you go into task manager, how many logical threads are there?

It's the 5800x and 8-core. The stats are correct, I just mixed up the core count. It's my "new" desktop sitting behind me that I haven't finished moving onto yet, currently sitting without its video card in it.

Which one?

I have an existing GTX 1060 6GB I already had from before insane prices. And I bought an HP Omen 30L 5800x that someone had purchased to pull the video card from.

If you're an Intel/Windows gamer, or a Linux/Nvidia GPU server user, no. But this is a tailored product aimed at a distinct professional class, which spends heavily on the latest hardware that boosts their productivity.

Maybe? "Core" is apple, and everyone else sells oranges, so you need good benchmarks to compare.