I concur. Dual Xeon E5-2687W here (2×8 pcores, Sandy Bridge). Turbo 3.8 GHz to 3.4 all cores. [Ebay: ~$300 each, mid 2016]
It's still more expensive to buy a brand new Threadripper or 16-core Intel (sic) than this bargain I made some 4 years ago.
I will probably get a Zen 3 platform, once each CCX contains 8 cores (4 is just too limited for my virtualization need, I kinda like that my Xeons are "monolithic").
Obviously this is for programming and shit learning, not gaming, but I can still manage my 60 fps stat with a beefy GPU.
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-2500-vs-...