Is there a name for this effect in an abstract sense? I see it pop up a lot where the gains from scaling are super-linear to the scale itself. Or is it just called "economies of scale".
He didn't really scale up to get from 1 RPS to 12 RPS. It's just that he was already invested in a scale (full PC build drawing heaps of idle power) that didn't match his requirements.
i.e. it's faster for a Tesla to go 5km than a plane when both are from rest. That doesn't mean that you've scaled up by using a Tesla to get there faster.
You aren't going 12x faster by choosing the Tesla. You're just not going 12x slower. It's hard to write into words, but it's a dumb thing to say.