Zen seems to be doing better than Broadwell-E, IPC-wise.

Seems so, but based on only two leaked benchmarks, it may seem that AMD can't clock their parts high. Might have been a design decision, but at least they'll finally catch up with Ivy~Haswell generation chips (based on typical non-downclocked speeds). People also need to stop expecting AMD to be cheaper. It might be slightly vs comparable Intel chips, but it definitely won't be happening at current FX prices. If AMD sells at those prices they'll bankrupt themselves.

Seems so, but based on only two leaked benchmarks, it may seem that AMD can't clock their parts high. Might have been a design decision, but at least they'll finally catch up with Ivy~Haswell generation chips (based on typical non-downclocked speeds). People also need to stop expecting AMD to be cheaper. It might be slightly vs comparable Intel chips, but it definitely won't be happening at current FX prices. If AMD sells at those prices they'll bankrupt themselves.

The clock is my only worry, to be honest. In the end it will all depend on that, the price, and the gaming benches. The 8 real cores are very real deal and a threat to Intel, and they seem to do SMT in a different way. We'll see, I hope for the best.

The clock is my only worry, to be honest. In the end it will all depend on that, the price, and the gaming benches. The 8 real cores are very real deal and a threat to Intel, and they seem to do SMT in a different way. We'll see, I hope for the best.

Yep, clock speed is something that can't be easily tweaked after the design has been pretty much finalized. As a "first" generation chip for the Zen architecture they probably aimed at just matching IPC. Future revisions will be focused on clock speed. This is similar to how other chip designers tend to operate (and even AMD themselves). AMD's 8C is not a threat to Intel in the consumer range, but more so against Xeon-Ds, and other "low-end" Xeons that have low clock but many cores. If AMD's ECC memory controller is stable (and unlocked on desktop parts), then it'll force Intel to redo some of their micro server parts.

Even if it is as fast IPC wise as Haswell but not Skylake, they're pretty close!

When I upgraded from Ivy Bridge to the Skylake equivalent (i5K) I got amazing 10% more CPU power. It's useless to say something might match Haswell but not Skylake when the difference is practically nonexistent.

Intel has been a little busy, creating the most advanced semiconductor factories on Earth. They are basically almost five years ahead of everyone else.

The most advanced semiconductor factories on Earth that they use to produce the same old **** that they could already produce in lesser factories. Truly outstanding.

I'm a gamer and I know that the GPU is the king pin for gaming but some games benefit from a nicely overclocked CPU and why can't we have a 5GHz processor without needing lots of good luck (an Intel processor that is capable of a nice overclock) and lots of cooling as once you start seriously overclocking a 6700K, the thing produces enormous amounts of heat! As lots of others have already said, Intel have no competition from AMD, nor do NVidia, shame on you AMD that you have been so comprehensively beaten into submission when there would be plenty of customers willing to buy from you if you produced what they wanted. I am completely unexcited by this story, move along, nothing of interest here...

If AMD or Nvidia released a graphics card that was 10% faster every year, we'd still be playing games that looked like they were made in 2003. Intel gets away with it and they're not lazy? We should have all had 16 core processors at this point for mainstream and 64+ core for high end. I really hope AMD starts the CPU wars again because it's been really stagnant. Intel only cares about energy efficiency, when the rest of us want raw speed.

Couple things here.. It's much easier to scale with cores on a GPU than it is to scale IPC speed on a processor. Intel is obviously capable of building 20+ core processors, but they don't do much in terms of speed in the vast majority of applications, regardless to how those applications are programmed. That's not to mention the shifting programmability of GPU's and the offloading of gaming tasks to GPU's in general. "the rest of us" is a small minority. The market is obviously shifting away from large desktop PC's and into phones/tablets/ultrabooks/etc. That's where Intel is focused, which is why the largest gains are in integrated GPU/Energy efficiency. I get that's not what Guru3D is about, but I don't think it's fair to fault Intel for following market trends.

So they are basically just increasing clocks and that's the main source of higher performance. Other than that still same old quad core.

Zen seems to be doing better than Broadwell-E, IPC-wise.

Cherry picked benchmark/program so the reality is likely a bit different but regardless Zen shows potential. I fear that they can't get the clocks high enough but Zen+ might solve that one the process matures.

Yep, clock speed is something that can't be easily tweaked after the design has been pretty much finalized. As a "first" generation chip for the Zen architecture they probably aimed at just matching IPC. Future revisions will be focused on clock speed. This is similar to how other chip designers tend to operate (and even AMD themselves).

That really depends on the design. Netburst went for frequencies first, for example. We'll see. Let's not forget that the base frequency of the 6900k is "only" 3.2GHz. It boosts up to 4GHz, but not all cores do. The frequencies are not that far away from each other.

AMD's 8C is not a threat to Intel in the consumer range, but more so against Xeon-Ds, and other "low-end" Xeons that have low clock but many cores. If AMD's ECC memory controller is stable (and unlocked on desktop parts), then it'll force Intel to redo some of their micro server parts.

Yeah. A cheap true 8-core with good thermals would kill in the server space.

When I upgraded from Ivy Bridge to the Skylake equivalent (i5K) I got amazing 10% more CPU power. It's useless to say something might match Haswell but not Skylake when the difference is practically nonexistent.

It actually exceeded Broadwell-E IPC, which would bring it to Skylake territory. Skylake is impressive mainly due to the memory controller and the higher base frequencies. Also Skylake is a 4C/8T design while Zen will be out on a 8C/16T configurations and higher.

The most advanced semiconductor factories on Earth that they use to produce the same old **** that they could already produce in lesser factories. Truly outstanding.

No, they couldn't. That's why companies making ARM CPUs in other factories were trying to get deals with Intel, and they finally got them. There is also a design convergence in the CPU area. Zen is very much like a Core CPU, with small design differences here and there. Things are stale because physics and design have reached a stalemate really. Things seem only to be able to go more "parallel" from now on, and the problem is that not all problems can be solved in parallel. Unless there is a shift in physics or on how chips are made, don't expect much. And no, it's neither Intel's or anybody elses "fault". WTF.

Cherry picked benchmark/program so the reality is likely a bit different but regardless Zen shows potential. I fear that they can't get the clocks high enough but Zen+ might solve that one the process matures.

Cinebench is a very good indicator of general performance. I can't think of a more representative benchmark to show. I also wait for the reviews, but the signs look good up to now.

As lots of others have already said, Intel have no competition from AMD, nor do NVidia, shame on you AMD that you have been so comprehensively beaten into submission

Nvidia has had plenty of competition. The R9 2xx and R9 3xx were great competitors when it came to price/performance. Just because Nvidia released a new series of GPUs a few months ago doesn't mean AMD never stepped up to the plate. Feel like people have super short term memory when It comes to these new releases.