What's the difference between a 4 core VM running a Bitcoin Node vs. a 16 core VM? I'm trying to help out the Bitcoin network as efficiently as possible. I have access to VM's, with a $1200 monthly budget. I'm trying to figure out if a single 16 core/ 56gb RAM VM would be better than a multiple barebone dual core/3.5gb RAM VMs.

Here's the pricing list:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/virtual-machines/

How would you set up these VM's the most efficient way with a $1200/month budget?
There's very little value in running a Bitcoin node on Microsoft servers. The idea of nodes is not to add processing power to the network, but to increase decentralization and redundancy. Running multiple instances on servers completely controlled by Microsoft does not help that goal.