Again, that's 40 mid size boxes with questionable GC (32G to 48G heap size is the no man land, G1GC target pause time of 500ms of course will result in 500ms P999 latency, etc), versus 4 big boxes, which have more than 4x higher specs. So 10 divides by 4, that's the 2-3x that I mentioned.

The TWCS is just a good example that raw performance is not everything. Performance also comes from things like compaction strategy, data modeling, and access pattern, while users and stakeholders also care about things like easiness to modify, friendly license, and steady stewardship.