The NPU is still there. This adds matmul acceleration directly into each GPU core. It takes about ~10% more transistors to add these accelerators into the GPU so it's a significant investment for Apple.

1. It adds new features. Eg. see matmul and other to-be-detailed-soon features.

2. It moves some stuff from the external Neural Engine to the GPU, which substantially increases speeds for those workloads. That itself is a feature.

Will any of this really matter much to the average consumer at this point? Probably not. Not until Apple Intelligence gets off the ground.