Did Apple rush an 'inferior' SOC to market ?

[ric22]

I really don’t understand what you are trying to argue for. Yes, multi-core performance of M3 Pro is not going to be significantly higher than that if M2 Pro. Same for the GPU. These are thinks we’ve known since the launch. So what?

It’s obvious that Apple is rebalancing the M- family, pushing the Max more towards extreme performance spectrum while keeping the Pro at mid-range performance. Nothing about this is a “botched job”, it’s all very carefully planned.

It seems clear that Apple are trying to position the M3 Pro closer to the M3 than the M3 Max, for typically Apple reasons that involve trying to push people to buy more expensive models. It 'looked' like a botched M3 Pro on the face of it, but you're right that the handicapping/cost cutting must be deliberate.

Let's just hope that the M4 Pro doesn't diminish in positioning further to become merely an "M4+" type chip.