Upgrade Path Planning - which CPU to choose

Can you advise me on the best upgrade path possible?

 

My hardware:

- Gaming PC: Intel i7 7700k

- Unraid Server: AMD FX-8320, nVidia 1650 for bootup, nVidia 9500 GT, PCI-e x1 card for 4 sata

 

Some problems I am having right now are:

- CPU is too hot, heating up everything in the case, HDDs run up to 50 degree C in a case with 8x 140mm fans and huge airflow.

- nVidia 1650 cannot go in the 2nd slot, because SATA cables on the MB interfere, so I cannot use it for VM passthrough, and I am stuck with the weak nVidia 9500 GT for VMs. I cannot boot with this old MB from the 2nd GPU, so I am stuck to using the fast GPU just for boot. 

 

I really want to have iGPU, and have all external GPUs free for VMs and plex transcode. Best option would be to have 1650 dedicated to the VM, and 9500 dedicated to Plex.

 

Possible upgrade path 1:

Gaming PC gets new hardware, 7700k goes in the server. This CPU would be perfect for the server, it's cold, it's well supported, it has iGPU. However next upgrade after few years would have to follow the same path, which means whatever I choose now for the Gaming PC will go into the server again. Few options I am considering:

- Intel i7 11700k, Intel i9 11900k (or even i9-11900 because of the 65W power rating), 

- AMD Ryzen 7 4750G, AMD Ryzen 5 4650G (both 65W with iGPU).

- AMD Ryzen 9 5900x

I would like the faster Ryzen 5900x, however the lack of iGPU probably makes it a bad choice for the next upgrade in the feature, when the Gaming PC hardware will go in the server once again.

 

Possible upgrade path 2:

Just upgrade the server, since I am happy with the gaming PC right now, and get cheaper CPU - Ryzen 4650G. However this makes no sense - since even the cheapest CPU that I am considering, would be an actual upgrade to my gaming PC.

 

Some Questions:

- Am I missing some upgrade path?

- Am I missing some products?

- Will the Ryzen 4650G and Ryzen 4750G have good virtualization capabilities? I remember LTT having some problems here https://youtu.be/-Mgnwn4twZE?t=405 - I am not doing 2 VMs simultaneously, however this still makes me worried.

- Since the next upgrade will be 3-4-5 years in the feature, this gives plenty of time for unraid to catch up on any issues might still be available with the AMD. I could even be fine with Ryzen 5900x and having 1 GPU shared for Boot, and Plex transcode.

- Will there be more advanced setup needed to get AMD working vs Intel? The video I posted above shows some additional tweaking needed with AMD. I do consider the ease-of-use in the equations, it's actually the most important thing. (TBH, the Ease-of-use was my #1 reason for going unraid)