Maybe not in single threaded performance, but Apple has no server grade parts. Ampere, for example, is shipping an 80 core ARM N1 processor that puts out some truely impressive multithreaded performance. An M1 Mac is an entirely different market - making a fast 4+4 core laptop processor doesn't neccesarily translate into making a fast 64+ core server processor.
To be honest it does though. You could take 10 M1 chips (40+40 cores, with around 30TFLOPS of GPU) put them into a server and even at full load you would be at 150W, which is about half of the high core count Xeons. Obviously not as simple as that, but the thermal fundamentals are right.
The 40 core Xeon also costs around 10k.
There's rumors that the new iMac will have a 20 core M1 (16+4). I imagine that will be faster than even the top line $10k Xeon.
I have absolutely no doubt apple could put together a server based on the M1 which would wipe the floor with Intel if they wanted to. But I very much doubt they will since it is so far out of their core competencies these days.
I have absolutely no doubt apple could produce a ridiculously good server CPU from the M1. I doubt they will actually do it though.
> You could take 10 M1 chips (40+40 cores, with around 30TFLOPS of GPU) put them into a server
Not really, part of why the ARM chips are so good is that the memory bandwidth is so fast. With 40+40 cores you're going to have at least NUMA to contend with, which always hampers multithreaded performance.
if they could easily do that(competitor for xeon) they would do it, it's a huge and very stable market, there is no reason to ignore it, if you have such a big advantage.
