Intel Corp (INTC)

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chipguy, based on AMD's public statements (+40% IPC over XV) and the clocks that the chips are apparently running at (Summit Ridge is reportedly hitting 3.3GHz all-core turbo and 3.6GHz max single core turbo), we can speculate on the competitive positioning.

Here's Excavator running @ 4.2GHz in GB4:

https://browser.primatelabs.com/v4/cpu/791608

Single core score of 2749 (I picked the fastest one in the GB4 data base; and this is a locked SKU so we know it's running at stock speeds).

Apply a 1.4x multiplier (AMD's stated IPC increase), and we get to ~3849 single core.

My Broadwell-based 6950X @ 4.2GHz achieves a single core score of 4585.

If we assume GB4 is representative (and I am told that GB4 is a very good benchmark, and apparently AMD agrees considering it is one of the companies listed on the Primate Labs website that uses GB4 internally apparently), then Broadwell is around 19% faster than Zen clock-for-clock.

Skylake is at least another 10% faster than Broadwell clock-for-clock (I will run my 6700K @ 4.2GHz then run GB4 at some point to measure), so you are realistically looking at a 30%+ performance/clock delta between Zen and Skylake.

The 7700K Kaby Lake chip that will arrive in January runs at 4.2GHz base/4.5GHz single core turbo.

So, for most consumer workloads -- which are dominated by single-threaded performance -- the top Kaby Lake-S SKU could have a ~60% single-threaded performance advantage over Zen.

Intel also has a new HEDT platform coming in Q3/Q4 of 2017 that should support a chip known as Kaby Lake-X, which is the same silicon die as Kaby Lake-S, but with a higher TDP & iGPU disabled. I suspect they will crank the clocks up even further on this part, which could increase the single-thread performance delta between Kaby Lake and Zen.

AMD's selling point, as it has been for years, will likely be "more cores."