No, CPUs is more relevant. Linux runs on M1, and if they sold CPUs, someone would make a board they could be put on that fit in standard server form factors. For this type of comparison, people want CPUs, not the next version of Xserve.
But Apple doesn't sell the M1 cpu without a Mini or MB carrier included.
I think relatively few people want to buy a rackmount server based on a motherboard that hosts a cannibalized M1 limited to the 16GB of RAM that it came with, paying the price premium for the rest of the machine. An M1 seems to be roughly equivalent to an Ryzen 5000-series CPU, and you can get those for $300 (6c/12t) through $1K (16c/32t) without having to go through the labor costs of pulling out the CPU from a $900 carrier.
I'm not sure I follow. The relevant part of the thread as I saw it was "too bad Apple does not sell CPUs." Selling the CPUs would mean you wouldn't need to cannibalize anything, and in a discussion about the merits of AMD vs Intel as the part used in a platform like this, comparing the bare CPU seems more relevant.
