Dave Lee made a video about the Core i9 (now previous generation) that thermal throttled almost immediately under load. The throttling was so terrible it actually performed worse than the 2017 MacBook Pro.
It would be interesting to see an updated test. Since this report, multiple apps have undergone speed overhauls. The latest version of Hyper, for example, dropped DOM rendering in favor of Canvas/WebGL.
That being said, there is a major difference in perceived speed working with terminals over a GUI like in macOS versus something with fewer layers. I hooked up a Raspberry Pi to do some vim editing using Raspbian Stretch Lite and it felt like editing on a supercomputer (right up until I needed to compile something).
I just picked up the latest MacBook Air. I can literally see the display ribbon cables in the hinge area. They do not appear to be under as much tension as the Pro in the iFixit video, but I wonder if my Air will exhibit the same issue at 366 days after purchase...
https://youtu.be/Dx8J125s4cg