Modern processor without memory tagging for example is a little..... dated, given how much the new AIs accelerated the vulnerability discovery in all the apps and system components.
Or maybe that security doesn't have a practical application?
I’m sure Apple’s chips could do better in single core if they were willing to push the power envelope way higher too.
Multi-core is easy to beat, just add more cores until you win. There were already chips that beat the M series just by having way more threads/cores.