MySQL is a great db server for sheer performance, Jon Lim’s benchmarks confirm this.  But if you want to get truly impressive results from your setup, there are additional measures you can take:

• make sure your version of linux is optimised for multi-threading (RH 8 and below are not)
• considering installing your scsi disks as an RAID array for fastest disk access
• many additional disk I/O tweaks can be achieved with hdparm
• consider compiling MySQL yourself which opens up a range of performance enhancements
• make sure you queries are optimised and tables appropriately indexed
• finally benchmark performance with each modification you make, you can use a tool like MySQL Super Smack
• and when it comes to realtime monitoring mytop can’t be beat

Thanks to the folks over at databasejournal.com for some great MySQL articles.