Cheat a way to get i7-like performance?

[Aniallation]

I think i'd feel a bit safer being on the intel side. Does the xeon e3 and the i5 close in benchmarks?

Xeon E3 is an i7. In things that can use 8 threads like streaming, editing and rendering, it will be quite a bit better then the i5.

they are in the sense that they will no longer see any worthy upgrade CPU yes...they still render videos faster than an haswell core i5...that's all i'm saying!

Well AM3 chips were backwards compatible with AM2+ boards......

Who knows

[NumLock21]

At your budget of $240, the only way to get Core i7 like performance or a CPU like the Core i7 will be a Intel Xeon E3xxxx v3. Some of the models have HT, but not all comes with a iGPU.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($239.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $239.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-01 18:28 EDT-0400

http://ark.intel.com/products/75054/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E3-1230-v3-8M-Cache-3_30-GHz