Base clock is all core clock with AVX workload. Some workloads, including gaming, doesn't use AVX, allowing the CPU to boost all cores much higher without increasing the energy consumption. This should not be confused with overclocking all cores (with AVX) to the same clock speed.
That doesn't make advertising 1.3GHz-up-from-base boost clocks that can't be maintained by normal coolers and only matter for 1-2 core loads any less shady, though. I'd wager this rumored 9900K would run at 3.7-3.8-ish under sustained all-core loads when not OC'd/without MCT (i.e. when power limited). If not power limited, I'm sure it can run quite a lot faster, but that requires hefty cooling. Even a jump of a few hundred MHz would add significantly to power consumption. 8 current Intel cores at 4.6GHz at 14nm++ would easily consume 150-200W.
Then you should clean your glasses. i7-8700/K beats Ryzen 7 2700/X, with 2 fewer cores, and AMD boosting beyond their TDP, and consumes more than Intel. Intel doesn't need a mainstream 8-core CPU to compete with current Ryzens.
Nah, I don't need to, but you really ought to work on your reading comprehension. Just to be extra clear: "Intel is in serious trouble" does
not mean "Intel is losing" or anything similar. It simply means that they are in serious trouble. What trouble? They stand to lose a lot of market share across multiple large segments of their business of they don't get their act together quick: consumer (mainly desktop, but also laptops), enterprise/workstation/HEDT, and server.
They still have a minor process advantage, but that's going away soon thanks to their 3-years-late 10nm process and the soon-to-arrive 7nm processes from TSMC and GloFo (which from all reports should be competitive at least in feature size - we'll have to see in terms of power and clock scaling). Considering that Intel has delayed the launch of 10nm several times, and the only "product" they have launched on it is a gimped-beyond-belief i3 with a disabled iGPU and an oddly high TDP (considering it doesn't have an iGPU) that it reportedly strong-armed OEMs into building laptops around to say they have "shipping 10nm", it really wouldn't be surprising if 10nm suffered even more delays.
They also have a <1GHz clock speed advantage on the high end, but chances are that lead will shrink significantly if not disappear outright as AMD moves to a process that wasn't primarily designed for low-power mobile parts. It's true that the 2700X draws a lot of power at high clocks, but that's due to pushing clocks on a process not designed for this. 7nm is very, very likely to change this. Not to mention that the base Zen design is almost scary efficient at lower clocks, beating out Intel in perf/w <=3.5GHz. Intel still wins in mobile (due to low-power RAM and various platform optimizations that they've nailed down over the years), but they're not moving forward much.
Intel also have a ~10% (average) IPC advantage, but AMD has promised significant IPC increases for Zen2. Current rumors say 10-15%, but even if it's as low as 5% average (or average in gaming loads, which matter most to enthusiasts and consumers), that eats significantly into Intel's performance lead as long as clocks increase to match.
In short: Intel is in serious trouble. It needs to get its disastrous 10nm process out the door, preferably yesterday. It needs an architecture update to increase IPC as their arch hasn't changed (at all!) since Skylake. It needs to stop the idiotic chipset segregation, forcing users to pay for new motherboards that aren't necessary at all, which is pushing users away. It needs to get its PR somewhat in line with reality (stop acting like they're light-years ahead of everyone else, and avoid catastrophes like the "28 cores at 5GHz!!!!" debacle, and so on). Intel has so damn much to lose, and over the last year it hasn't shown much in the way of initiative or ability to staunch the bleeding. Of course, they might still pull this off. But I'm not confident in that.
