Possibly Battlemage running at 100% will use more power than M3's GPU running at 100%...it will take some detailed testing to track that+ Lunar Lake can be set at different TDP's (plus performance settings, on battery vs connected to power). Not to mention different "100%" GPU workloads.

At the end of the day though, users vastly prefer a more powerful built in GPU for the occasional game session...Intel is willing to pay for the transistors, and Apple reserves them for the M3 Pro instead.

Nice to see ANE supports that...good to know!

I’m not sure this tracks because you’re not comparing like for like

> Intel is willing to pay for the transistors, and Apple reserves them for the M3 Pro instead.

Apple is also willing to pay for it. You just happen to be comparing the higher tier Intel to the lower tier Apple chip.

Intel just doesn’t have a suitable answer in that tier level yet because they haven’t launched the Core Ultra 3.

If you were to map the Intel levels to Apple, they’d roughly line up like so (ignoring Intels power delineated lines):

Core 3 -> base M series

Core 5 -> M pro

Core 9 -> M Max

The Ultra 9 288V you quote is their highest spec device and has a recommended range of 17-37W.

The Ultra 5 226V is the closest to an M3 at 8-37W but loses a lot of the performance numbers you quote and still consumes more power as a whole.

The cheapest Apple with an M3 Pro is https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/14-inch-space... which is $1999 (with 18 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD).

Full pricing on Lunar Lake is not available yet, but for example, XPS 13 with with an Ultra 7 is $1399 (16 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD) https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-computer-laptops/new-xp...

Thinkpads will probably be a bit more...Acer a bit less...Asus will probably be around the same or less.

Here's a high spec Asus (32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD). https://shop.asus.com/us/90nb14f4-m00620-asus-zenbook-s-14-u... for $1499... Apple's equivalent is $2,599!

At that point you’re comparing different products as a whole not the SoC. At that point it becomes a significantly different discussion.

Neither of those laptops you linked are comparable to the MacBook Pro on a number of points, primarily the display.

Just like Intel doesn’t have an M3 competitor out, Apple doesn’t have a competitor for the lower end of premium laptops.

The Asus screen is very close (only significant difference is brightness), AND a touchscreen!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnJw54oyfLE

14.0-inch, 3K (2880 x 1800) OLED 16:10 aspect ratio, 0.2ms response time, 120Hz refresh rate, 500nits HDR peak brightness, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, 1,000,000:1, 1.07 billion colors, PANTONE Validated, Glossy display, 70% less harmful blue light, SGS Eye Care Display, Touch screen, (Screen-to-body ratio)90%, With stylus support

vs

14.2-inch (diagonal) Liquid Retina XDR display;1 3024-by-1964 native resolution at 254 pixels per inch

1,000,000:1 contrast ratio XDR brightness: 1000 nits sustained full-screen, 1600 nits peak2 (HDR content only) SDR brightness: 600 nits Color

1 billion colors Wide color (P3) True Tone technology Refresh rates

ProMotion technology for adaptive refresh rates up to 120Hz Fixed refresh rates: 47.95Hz, 48.00Hz, 50.00Hz, 59.94Hz, 60.00Hz