I don't know where you heard that, but even if we accept that assertion, it's not relevant to this conversation.
We're talking about running Linux on the Mac, so you won't be paying that virtualisation penalty.
There is no reason to think ARM64 containers running on an ARM64 machine would run any worse than AMD64 images running on an AMD64 machine. So given M1 Pro/Max Macs consistently rate amongst the best performing laptops on the market, you should expect a similar experience when running ARM64 containers on Linux.
As more developers pick up ARM64 macs, more binaries and containers will be releasing in ARM64. There was already a massive boost in this kind of thing after the launch of the M1.
I don't really care about power efficiency tbh, I'm plugged into the wall all day