Which processor to choose for a home virtual machine (laboratory)?

Question

Virtualization

I want to assemble a system unit for testing Linux and an asset directory for studying and testing solutions. Well, 16 GB ssd, etc. understandably. But what to take percent? Required i7? Maybe i5 or i3 is enough? Or take the old i7 2nd generation for example.
In parallel, it is planned to work with 2, max 3 virtual machines\

Answer 1

It depends on what is required from these virtual machines. And on i3 you can run 10-20 virtual machines at rest. But as soon as someone starts to eat resources, as the rest, in which case it will not be enough.

Answer 2

When I needed a host for my home, I generally put it on what was, as in the song, in fact, "I blinded him from what was." An ordinary mother from a gigabyte. The usual percentage of Intel. Memory - 16 gigabytes, network networks - ordinary, sawed firewood later.
For several years, this supership was dragging AD, a file washer, a couple of test windows machines, proxy-mail-web...