You basically just said, "I don't care about the planet or any of the people that live on it, as long as I can get my work done slightly faster".
The power requirements of the machine you describe would easily be more than double that of the Mac, but you probably aren't getting anywhere close to double the performance.
No one who cares about the environment should buy a Mac, where you can't upgrade anything and the entire machine is e-waste when a single component gives up the ghost. I like Macs and the Apple Silicon CPUs but let's be honest here.
No one just throws away a perfectly functioning, fully supported Mac. They hold their value well enough that an “upgrade” is selling your old computer and buying a new one.
Besides, if you care about performance, you’re going to want to do more than just replace the RAM
>I don't care about the planet or any of the people that live on it, as long as I can get my work done slightly faster
Unless you live in a cave and using your excrement as manure I could apply the same logic to your lifestyle.
Realistically the only practical difference is virtue signaling (I've seen a bunch of hipsters bring up these kind of irrelevant talking points while discussing their vacation in some exotic destination 5 minutes later).
And like someone else said, Apple devices are the definition of throwaway consumer products designed for a limited shelf life.
It's barely going to make a dent in your energy budget, if you use 4 kW/day running a 500W computer for 8 hours (assuming it's pegged at 100% CPU and GPU continuously, which it's not), that's the same as driving 5 miles or as turning down your A/C by 2 degrees.
That is not what he said at all. That's a perfect example of a straw man.
Apple has brainwashed you so much that you think you are also saving the planet with its 'amazing' machines. You are not. Collective power saving from computers alone is a drop in the ocean of what all those mega corporations could do if they would just stop pointing the finger of waste management and energy saving on customers.
I wish I had a 5950X that requires less power. I don't. I am going to choose this CPU over any mac any day because it's faster. A lot of other CPUs consume less electricity, I don't use them neither. End of the story.
The power requirements of the machine you describe would easily be more than double that of the Mac, but you probably aren't getting anywhere close to double the performance.