CPU for home lab

[Mimiro]

I want a computer I can use as a home lab, hosting VMs and potentially virtualized networks, as well as allowing me to play around with whatever games are on the market. But it's difficult to determine what's going overboard vs. what's too conservative.

I know that for virtualization in general, an i7 is better than an i5. But if I get a high-performing i5, would I still be potentially bottlenecking my performance in those situations where I'm running VMs? I'd most likely be running no more than 5 - 6 VMs side by side at a time at the most, say 3 Win 2012 servers and 3 desktop OSs. Could I expect an i5-6600K to perform as well as an i7-6700 under those circumstances? And the follow-up question, in terms of performance, would I be better off getting an i7 Haswell or an i5 Skylake?

 

[profoundnoah]

For VM's, I really do recommend an i7. A haswell i7 still beats the crap out of a skylake i5. The i7 is the recommended processor for this task, since it's hyperthreaded, it can handle VMs much better.

 

[ComputerSecurityGuy]

Xeons are the best value as long as they have HT. Next on down is the FX-8350. I do not recommend an i5 for virtualization.

 

[sancho_mic]

6 VM's i quite high, but i guess you can always do a bit of overallocation and let the hypervisor manage allocation to the most demanding VM.
i would recommend the x99 platform with 5820k to start with (6 cores, 12 ht). you can go up to 5960X (8cores, 16ht) or even jump to xeons.
i own asus x99-m ws (micro atx) and it's a fantastic board (64gb max ram - 4 slots).
you could go also with the asus x99-e ws (extended atx) for even more ram (128gb - 8 slots).

 

[Mimiro]

I think going to a Xeon would break my budget, so would that 5960. 6 VMs wouldn't be typical, usually it would probably only be 3 or so running side by side.

So regarding an i7, I'm considering an i7-6700. Not the 6700k since I probably won't be overclocking.

Xeons are the best value as long as they have HT. Next on down is the FX-8350. I do not recommend an i5 for virtualization.

I hadn't considered an AMD, you would put the performance of that over an i7? It's certainly more affordable, and has an extra 4 cores.

 

[Mimiro]

I think going to a Xeon would break my budget, so would that 5960. 6 VMs wouldn't be typical, usually it would probably only be 3 or so running side by side.

So regarding an i7, I'm considering an i7-6700. Not the 6700k since I probably won't be overclocking.

Xeons are the best value as long as they have HT. Next on down is the FX-8350. I do not recommend an i5 for virtualization.

I hadn't considered an AMD, you would put the performance of that over an i7? It's certainly more affordable, and has an extra 4 cores.