It isn't a dedicated core. Linode offers a $20/mo 8-core instance. That doesn't mean there aren't others sharing those cores. If Linode were offering 8-core

It isn't a dedicated core. Linode offers a $20/mo 8-core instance. That doesn't mean there aren't others sharing those cores. If Linode were offering 8-core Sandy Bridge E5-2670 servers with all 8 of those cores dedicated to you for $20, that would be quite a steal. The RAM is guaranteed and the processor is shared. Amazon has been working a fixed-compute model on all except their Micro instances. Other providers are sharing cores. Right now, DigitalOcean is limiting the number of cores exposed to smaller instances. They may change that in the future (there have been hints on their feedback site that they're looking into changing this so that smaller instances could have better burst capabilities).