Take a look at Limulus systems from Basement Supercomputing: http://www.basement-supercompu...

These are fast low power/noise/heat systems with a fully installed open source HPC software stack.

You can't cheat Amdahl's law anymore than you can give birth in one month with nine women. The law is a rather simple idea similar to chemical kinetics, when you think about it. i.e. a rate limiting steps.

If you are interested in a non-mathematical description of Amdahl's law have a look at http://www.clustermonkey.net/Parallel-Programming/parallel-computing-101-the-lawnmower-law.html

Many people first used Windows not by choice, but by mandate -- there was no other option and the Microsoft monopoly made sure it stayed that way. (unless you bought a Mac) My guess is many people have found the MS experience frustrating and a general PITA, but there was never any other choice. They had to live with the shoddy time wasting experience Microsoft called computing.

Now given the option of having their "desktop experience" on their "phone" or "pad" I am sure many people are interested in real alternatives. My prediction is no matter how hard Microsoft tries to play the "we are the future of computing because we invented everything" song and dance, most users will chose iOS and Android for exactly that reason. Hi-tech karma at its best.