Right now the M1 is faster, specifically core for core than any Intel / AMD offering.
However, there are some current (high-end performance) drawbacks in which I wonder what Apple's next step will be:
• Discrete Grfx.
Sure M1 GPU is better than Intel's, but AMD just launched the fastest grfx card: RX 6800XT. Normally we would have looked at Intel's next CPU and hope to get the AMD GPU in the next lineup of Macs.
What will be Apple's answer to the high-end GPU? I don't thing the Apple "M2" will be able to compete with the current high-end AMD / nVidia lineup.
• Loads of RAM
16 GB seems the current limit, and sure the "M2" will be able to increase the maximum RAM (maybe to 32 GB?), but... I wonder if > 100 GB will be a possibility soon with Apple Silicon.
Keeping those in mind, could it be that Apple doesn't have dedicated GPU and "loads of RAM-support" on the near-future roadmap?
And that there will be some need to deliver Intel / dedicated based GPU Macs for some time for high-end Macs?
Besides that, maybe Intel will get some kind of breakthrough coming up? As the iX-series development seem to have hit a wall for some time now... just a few % performance increase per series (feels like the Motorola issue with the G4 20 years ago...)
Maybe Apple could support x64 longer than we might think just to be safe.