@Lightlyseared True, a 1336 will eat an 1156 for lunch, but the point remains that the Phenom II x4 has nothing on the Core i7 performance-wise regardless of which socket it’s in. (The x6 maybe….)
To be honest, part of the reason I like the 875K is that I can use it without swapping my mobo out. And yes, the i5–750 is a marginally better value, but also only ⅔ the power. Even though HT slows some things down, I thing that the 875K has enough muscle to overcome that since the HT performance hit is more of a pothole than a roadblock.
If value is all that matters then AMD is better but part of the reason that they are so much cheaper is that they are a bit slower and not what I would call “amazing”. And while the i7–9xx series is a bit faster, they are nowhere near as good a value as the 8xx-series. Until the price gap narrows a bit, I don’t feel that the higher bus speeds are not worth the price premium unless you are going for a budget-be-damned Tower of Power, in which case I would go with Xeons. Maybe next year when prices drop, but not right now.
You aren’t wrong though, since there is more than one correct answer here. All I’m saying is that you and I don’t agree on the best path.
One thing we apparently do agree on is that Apple charges cutting-edge prices for last year’s specs, locks their stuff down, and is generally not a wise choice unless you have more dollars than sense.