8GB RAM is not a lot to run VMs. Maybe at best you can run 2 VMs concurrently (maybe each with 2GB or 1 with 4GB and the other with 2GB virtual RAM assigned). So unless you intend to upgrade the RAM immediately after the purchase, having those extra cores is not going to help you run more VMs concurrently. Also keep in mind these days, many laptops have RAM modules that are either soldered (i.e. not upgradeable) or an upgrade might require opening up the whole laptop (thereby voiding warranty) to access the RAM slots. So you also have to check whether it is easily upgradeable or not for the RAM.

As for AVX2, AVX512, it is not required to run VMs. AVX2 has been around since 2013 in Intel Haswell generation.

If you intend to use the laptop and/or the VMs for things like machine learning/deep learning, having AVX2 and AVX512 will reduce a lot of compute time. Even for stuff like image recognition would use AVX/AVX2/AVX512 instruction set. I don't think AMD has the INVPCID instruction either. That instruction will prevent heavy context switching for I/O heavy applications (either network or disk or both). It will also prevent your VM entering into a VM-exit state (something like switching the VM out of context).

Better to go for a model with an Intel CPU and with at least 16GB of RAM.

yes i plan to upgrade to 32 GB of RAM however i will proceed with Ryzen for largest core number. Thanks @bluefirestorm for your detailed reply