An AMD EPYC workstation with dual 7402 processors (2.8/3.35, 24 core each) and 2TB RAM (16 x 128GB, comes to <$30K) can be had for less than 40K. This insistence on Intel makes for a poor value proposition.
Apple totally could've went with EPYC Rome instead of Xeon W... Google was testing them way, way before the public announcement, surely if Apple wanted a "few" for testing, AMD would've been game.
Ps. The RAM actually can be had for 20K https://memory.net/product/m386aag40mmb-cvf-samsung-1x-128gb... if one wants to really save on this.