It is not necessary to check the CPU cycles.
"no 800/1000 Mhz system would be emulated or usable as a balanced opponent of course."
The program emulates 100% of the complete system, for example:
Pentium 90 or max P133 MHz, ideal candidates against Chess Genius Exclusive and The King Element.
100% emulation of a Pentium 90 MHz system is quite simple.
The host PC will use only one core for emulation.
in my case, for example
on my I7 3930k esacore system I can emulate 100% Pentium systems up to 133MHz
On my I7 8550U laptop I can emulate Pentium systems up to 133MMX at 100%.
I make tournaments by myself and I have:
-Chess Genius 48 MHz
-Chess Genius Pro 120 MHz
-Chess Genius Exclusive and The King 300 MHz
For example,
choose the Pentium 90
the emulation is identical on any machine able to emulate it at 100%
So no problem for lichess.

In the end and how to actually have the system.
You have to create the disks, have them recognize the bios of the chosen motherboard, create the partition and format them, and install the desired operating system,
then install the programs and run the tournaments you want.

__________________
https://outskirts.altervista.org/forum/