Andrew,
As long as you limit your simulations to 8 cores or less, you’ll be fine. Going outside the box will really hurt with lammps. I’ve been benchmarking intel and amd chips, and find the latest intels to be the best. MD simulations have lots of small packets, so the intel FSB isn’t strained that much vs. what happens with large data communications you would have with QM or CFD codes.
Enjoy,