Yeah, with hyperthread support which 3200g doesn't have I came about late to know about hyperthread support in kontakt.. i think ableton supports it too.. seems like hyperthread is a must consider things for audio production nowadays.. *i think, not sure.. random encounter from daw / plugins and specs survey.. *

 

Don't face-palm yet fellow lol .
It's all right because the 3200G has 4 physical cores which is way better than 4 logical cores like the 3000G (2 cores x2 HT). It would be better perhaps with HT, but that 3200G is really good at price per value too.
You can't have it all. Unless you're billionaire (except dinosaurs).

 

I'd argue spending $300 on my 8700K a year ago when I was upgrading from a laptop was a good decision. It's not a lot of money ultimately. So what, you'll need to wait half a year or a year to save up more. $140 on 3200G gives you 150% less multicore performance and this will bite you. I'd rather spend some more and get something that's even one tier above what I need, so I'm future-proofed. I'd also argue if you don't have much money, you're better off buying used top-tier stuff, as it will age way better than today's new "barely enough but kinda meh already" tier stuff. Same with things like drives. I got a 970 EVO 1TB (NVMe) for $150 (supposedly new just taken out of a laptop), and I think it's way better to add the extra $50 than buy a $100 Crucial or Goodram, because they'll be 5 times slower (SATA vs NVMe) and likely have worse controllers, less DRAM (if any) and overall perform worse. It's worth the $50 extra to have something top-tier as it's infinitely more likely to last for the next 5 years, if not beyond.

Like you know, the decision is all yours, but I'd rather add $50 to my drive budget and then be done with it than curse at my computer for the next 10 years. $1200 or so for a "really nice and pretty cheap" system built off mostly used, but high-tier stuff is not a bad deal for me.

Edit: that said, I don't know your situation. I take $30-40/h when doing mixing/production work or playing gigs as a keyboard player, so it makes a lot of sense to just save up and get a system that will not get in the way of working (and making further money more efficiently, not to mention with less frustration for me and my client).