The M2 isn't out yet, so we don't know what it can beat. But core for core, Apple Silicon has the best performance by a wide margin with much lower power consumption than any x86 part (because while we weren't looking, RISC architecture really did change everything). Plus, its on-chip memory will equate, in a Mac Pro-like system, to gigabytes of L3 cache. Add on to that that Big Sur and later are specially optimized for the Apple chips, meaning that performance cores won't be burdened with the background tasks the OS performs, leaving 100% of their throughput available for user applications. So yeah, core for core the Threadripper will get smoked, and I wouldn't be surprised if an M2 with half the number of performance cores as a Threadripper has remains competitive with the TR for representative tasks (such as video editing, rendering, and encoding).
I think a lot of the hype is unwarranted with the M things and you will be able to match or exceed their performance for serious loads.
However... they're QUIET. So unless they manage to fuck up the desktops completely, i'll be getting one. Not with the laughable current 16G RAM though.
