You are still mixing overclock with AVX and boost (non-AVX).
We still don't know which voltage this CPU will run at during boosting, so wait and see how much the actual consumption will be.
True, but we can make relatively educated guesses based on current Intel 14nm+ products. For example, GamersNexus clocked their 8086K (which is, as they say, a top-binned 8700K) at 1.3V@5GHz, which is .1-.15V lower than most 8700Ks. At 5.3GHz it was Prime95 stable at 1.45V, consuming 250W from the EPS cable (lower in lighter loads: 200W in Blender, 195 in Cinebench - CB is not AVX). This, being a top bin, is a best case scenario for 14nm+, with significant power draw reductions from the average 8700K. For reference, GN's 8700k sample needed 1.4V for 4.9GHz. There is no reason to believe 14nm++ is noticeably better than this (it's not a node shrink, after all, at best a change akin to AMD's "12nm" process from the original 14nm), and it's a safe bet to think the average high-end CPU will be comparable in voltage-frequency scaling to the average 14nm+ CPU. Also, an increase in cores and die area usually means an increase in leakage and generally more things that can go wrong, which leads to higher power voltage and power consumption at equal clocks. In other words, it's quite safe to assume that any 8-core CPU from Intel manufactured on a 14nm node based on whatever optimization of the Skylake arch they put out next is going to behave roughly like Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake in terms of thermals and power draw - and any additional cores and/or frequency will add heat and power in line with this.
AMD gaining some market share is to be expected when they go from totally sucking to having okay offerings in some segments.
Yes, and? That doesn't change how Intel stands to lose quite a lot of market share, revenue and mindshare, though. Which seemed to be what you were arguing against a moment ago?
The only thing Intel have to fear is the massive AMD hype. Even if we assume the optimistic 15% IPC gain in Zen 2, we'll still have to wait for Zen 3 for AMD to come close to Skylake(2015) in IPC, and that's assuming Intel will do nothing in the meantime. Remember that even though Zen cut over half Intel's advantage, the improvements in Zen is mostly the "low-hanging fruit" and "reversals of mistakes" made in Bulldozer. Pushing IPC another 15% would require more effort than the improvements they did in Zen(1). AMD have promised improvements, not specifically 15%. I don't think Intel is scared if AMD plans to recycle Zen for five generations.
You've got a few things wrong here. First off, the "low-hanging fruit" quote you're referring to is from an AMD engineer (or exec? can't remember, might have been Dr. Su) talking about the
future of Zen
after the launch of Zen 1. Specifically, they said that they knew where the low-hanging fruit was in terms of improving the performance of the base Zen design over the coming generations. You're absolutely right that this will be difficult, but they also made it clear that the focus for Zen 1 was finalizing the design and getting it out, and they left out quite a bit of well-known optimization to ensure proper time to market. While this low-hanging fruit
might not represent a massive IPC increase, it's still
something. Intel hasn't released an updated architecture since 2015, as you so helpfully point out (largely caused by the never-ending 10nm delays, but they could have released a proper update if they wanted to - 2 years is enough for that). KBL and CFL are just SKL with a tuned-for-frequency production process, after all. Zero change beyond that (and adding cores).
Secondly, your phrasing makes it sound like you're saying Zen was built on Bulldozer. Zen was a clean-slate design, with no shared architecture with Bulldozer. Which, again, underscores how you've misunderstood/misremembered the whole "low-hanging fruit" thing. You don't get a 55% IPC improvement and a ~100% efficiency improvement by fixing "low-hanging fruit" in a design you've already iterated on multiple times.
Third, Ryzen's IPC is around 10% slower on average - more in a few benchmarks (particularly gaming), less in others, faster in some (like CB15 and most rendering tasks). A 15% increase (on average) would as such make it ... wait for it ...
faster than Skylake. And as such also KBL and CFL and whateverLake Refresh 8-core. I really don't think this is going to happen, particularly in gaming, but I see no reason to think AMD won't close the IPC gap some with Zen 2. Zen is facing its first major update. The upcoming 8-core Intel chip is (likely) not an architecture update at all, and whatever comes after it will be the 5th architecture revision of the design. In other words: AMD will likely have a far easier time finding places to improve performance, as Intel has been at this for
years.
The bundled coolers in Ryzen 7 2700/X might be better than the crappy one Intel bundles with several i5/i7 CPUs, but are not neary good enough to properly cool these CPUs, especially not with the super-aggressive boosting done by Ryzen 2. I wish both of them dropped bundled coolers for any >$200 retail CPU. These crappy downdraft coolers don't work well at all in cases, especially when you have enough airflow to cool this and a GPU. Why not make these coolers an optional bundle instead? AMD could instantly shave >$20 off their price. It's sad how many stock coolers are thrown in the trash every year…
Remember, stock coolers aren't for OCing. And while I personally wouldn't run a 2700X on the stock cooler, at least it doesn't thermal throttle -
unlike the "65W" i7-8700 with its stock cooler. Also, for those of us with custom water loops (or anyone with a faulty cooler or doing an "everything is working" test mount of a new build) stock coolers are very useful for troubleshooting or various pre-build tests. I agree that it's a shame with thousands of thrown-out coolers, but on the other hand, the savings would be negligible, and the coolers have utility for some of us. There's no way AMD is paying $20 for those coolers.
is worth complaining about being slow... unless you're doing something weird, like mirroring 10TB of data to some backup box on a daily basis, 10Gb doesn't seem really useful for home users yet.
Even though Lightroom stores edits separately from base files in a catalog file, I'd argue that the amount of work put into such a catalog makes that very much not throwaway too, even if the photos are safely stored elsewhere.
). A pump failure or coolant leak when I'm not coming home for two weeks is not something I want to experience.