Which is why I said it depends. A straight through speed test, even a comprehensive one, tells you little about how a system performs under full load.
The database is the hardest piece of architecture to scale simply. When you reach the point where too much is going on for a single server, you start to have problems. If large portions of your logic are in the database, you really have problems.
This isn't theoretical, either. I've seen Oracle databases running on the largest box Sun made at the time moved to RAC and having horrific problems due to intense stored procedure usage.
The database is the hardest piece of architecture to scale simply. When you reach the point where too much is going on for a single server, you start to have problems. If large portions of your logic are in the database, you really have problems.
This isn't theoretical, either. I've seen Oracle databases running on the largest box Sun made at the time moved to RAC and having horrific problems due to intense stored procedure usage.