I'm actually not shocked as I also have a 'proper' video/photo editing PC, so I know how much better it can be, however the main source of confusion is almost always with how the benchmarks work
What so many people don't realize (not saying this is you) is that the Geekbench scores that are so often touted (this is how they are compared to laptop CPUs) are
architecture benchmarks, not actual performance comparisons. Apple (and other manufacturers) spin this in various ways. It is the only way you can technically do an "apples to apples" comparison with much more powerful CPUs, because it takes things like wattage out of the equation. Obviously, the 8W CPU or whatever the A12X is gets absolutely demolished by a 35W CPU found in some of the most common laptops, and 90W+ desktop CPUs are in another universe. Performance per watt, however, is on par with entry-level ultra low voltage laptop CPUs, most of which are usually in the range of 8W to 15W similar to the A12X. In that context, the iPad Pros with the A12X are technically delivering "laptop performance" in a tablet.
Apple's CPU architecture is very efficient, but so is Intel/AMD, and the X86 platform is exponentially more capable at this time. When you are comparing architectures though, both of which have been so incredibly optimized, they are similar. The difference then becomes core count, wattage, clock speed, etc. which give enormous advantages to the non-mobile world.
My 2018 iPad Pro 11" takes about 8 seconds to load a single, small, 20MP RAW file into Affinity. My PC will load dozens of 46MP 14bit Raw files from my FF DSLR into Photoshop in less time than that. Any kind of serious photo editing on the iPad is absolutely excruciating. There is no file system, there is no way to batch process, you can't calibrate the screen, you can't use custom color profiles, everything has to be funneled though the Photos app, you can't use third party plug-ins, etc. etc. Video editing is a better story with programs like LumaFusion, but that has its limitations as well (8bit only, no distortion correction, etc.) Even a relatively cheap laptop makes a much faster photo editor than the iPad Pros, but the iPad Pros do handle the basic video tasks quite well.
The iPads can do certain things very quickly as some apps are very well optimized to run on the hardware and perform specific tasks. The notion that they are more powerful than even a modest laptop though is not true, and Apple works very hard to make you think it is by touting things Geekbench scores which give customers numbers to look at so higher must mean better, which it technically does, but is almost never interpreted in the proper context.