What you're describing (not counting dual monitors, which is a complete non-sequitur IMO) is just basic competence. When people are talking about 10x, it is more a matter of knowing what to do and how to do it.
As a simple example, consider implementing a shuffle from scratch. The inexperienced programmer will muddle about with loops and random statements, a few false starts, and probably after a morning or so will end up with something that is slower than necessary and perhaps not quite as random as it should be.
The experienced programmer will say "Fisher–Yates shuffle!" and have a top-in-class implementation ten minutes later.
The 10x programmers I've known were experienced like that in seemingly everything. I'm pretty sure I'm an above average programmer, yet I could routinely save myself hours of work by consulting with them for five minutes...
As a simple example, consider implementing a shuffle from scratch. The inexperienced programmer will muddle about with loops and random statements, a few false starts, and probably after a morning or so will end up with something that is slower than necessary and perhaps not quite as random as it should be.
The experienced programmer will say "Fisher–Yates shuffle!" and have a top-in-class implementation ten minutes later.
The 10x programmers I've known were experienced like that in seemingly everything. I'm pretty sure I'm an above average programmer, yet I could routinely save myself hours of work by consulting with them for five minutes...