Which CPU for an emulation machine?

[mkil5]

I want to build an emulation machine, I am just going to install Batocera (I have heard this is the best OS for this, better than Recalbox and Lakka, please let me know if I am correct in this assessment).

 

I have access to some old Dell PCs.  The best CPUs I have access to are i5 3470 and i3 6100.  I am not sure which one to go with.  The i3 would have better single core performance and better iGPU, but the i5 obviously has more threads and that could help with some newer systems.

 

Also for RAM, I can put in as much as needed, but I was thinking 4GB would be plenty?

 

What do you guys think?  Thanks for the help.

 

 

[Bombastinator]

Those are all Linux flavors I think. So distros not OSes.  Minor quibble I mention mostly for clarity.  Emulation likes whole threads.  Often more than 1.  Not gonna be super fast no matter what you do with those.  
 

i3 6100 is 2/4, i5 3470 is 4/4.  My suspicion is that it will run better on the i5 just because there’s less stuff in the way

[agent2]

The more cores, the better