Thanks for the in depth response. I actually currently have the i7 7700 and have the same results. i think I will consider getting an AMD threadripper build if I decide to keep scaling. I imagine a comparable intel is just more expensive? I think a couple of the thread rippers with high cores/threads are around $1500-2000, so that could work. I'm not sure, but maybe a VPS set up or a dedi would be better, just haven't tried it and I'm not sure if its a hassle or not. Good to know to not focus on the speed of the processor, that helps.
Thanks for the details