When I compare the specs of the E3-12xx series and E5-26xx series, the E3 appears to offer high speeds at a lower cost compared with the E5 which offers dual sockets but have a high a premium for higher CPU speeds.
The E5 also has a higher RAM capacity that enables providers to have more VMs even with a dual socket configuration. Does that mean that the E3 series will offer higher performance, at the cost of fewer VMs? ie a provider aiming to the best performance will prefer to use E3s instead?