or distributed in a cluster of cheap servers to increase I/O If a smaller cluster of 256-core servers had better bang/buck than a bigger cluster of 16-core ser

or distributed in a cluster of cheap servers to increase I/O If a smaller cluster of 256-core servers had better bang/buck than a bigger cluster of 16-core servers then that would still be a win for many applications (not everything CPU bound is also I/O bound, e.g. web application servers written in hilariously inefficient languages, virtualization).