Pi is not particularly “power sipping” either. Not every usb brick is capable of powering today’s Pi’s, which indicates peak power draw of over 5W.

Compared to Intel it still is - a 5V/3A brick is sufficient for all Pis, with Intel if you have USB power it's usually higher-voltage USB-C.

No, they aren't. You need 5.1 or 5.2v, otherwise you get stability issues. Learnt that the hard way.

Then why buy a Pi5 if you don’t have the juice?

I can get a 1GB Pi3 model B shipped to my door for £27 which will run off of any mobile phone charger from the last five years (heck, I just plug mine directly into the USB socket built into the wall outlet) and connect it to any TV from the last ten years with a £2 HDMI cable.

Cut your cloth.

Here's a 6W, $99 intel system: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKXL2MPM?ref=product_details&th=...

An $80 Pi 5 is 25W.

I have a hard time believing that system only has 6W total power draw.

A friend did that with a ThinkPad x200 over a decade ago, so I can believe it easily.

You should have a much harder time believing a Pi 5 draws 25w in this comparison. 6w from a small form factor N4000 Intel system is perfectly achievable.

An N4000 provides about half the CPU performance (single threaded), and half the cores that a Pi 5 has.

However, the N100s are very competitive. Maybe even faster and cheaper, and less power hungry.