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I don't have the link handy, but within the last month or two there was a story here on HN about a company (Facebook?) that determined it was better to go small

I don't have the link handy, but within the last month or two there was a story here on HN about a company (Facebook?) that determined it was better to go small on hardware. Which is to say that one or two socket servers were more of a sweet spot than 8 socket monsters, at least for generic loads.

ksec 11y ago
That was Facebook. Again backing up the same reason why ARM didn't manage to penetrate Server Market yet. The story was about Web Server which needs not a lot of CPU power, decent amount of memory and good networking. When anyone think of low power CPU they immediately think ARM has a fighting chance here. Before ARM even got a foothold in the Server market Intel responded with an Atom Server CPU. It turns out the market needed a more powerful CPU then they thought. Intel came again with Xeon-D, with has 2 to 8 Core, and integrated 10gbps Ethernet support at a low power consumption. It was an instant hit and it is now selling like hotcakes. They have recently updated with even 16 Core. You can stack 8 - 10 of these in 2U Microblade. Again when you take into account of power, performance, and other parts of the Server components, the TCO of CPU is relatively small. Even if you gain 10% of TCO improvement, you have to factor in the future roadmap of the CPU, as well as the Software development, compiling and testing cost involved.