We've seen all of this before. Bulldozer was the classic. Lets wait and see, but I am sure intel has several options to drop if anything comes close.
Oh it'll definitely "come close". Benchmarks clearly show that.
Bulldozer performed poorly even in benchmarks before release and received much less coverage and scrutiny than Zen. There's a lot more transparency by AMD with these chips because of Bulldozer being what it was. Also, benchmarks don't lie, there's clearly a massive improvement here in raw power.
Also I'd like to point out that I'm not hoping/expecting AMD to perform better than Intel at the top of the line. And neither are they because they're not trying to with Summit Ridge. What they are focusing on is bringing themselves back into mainstream market. As nice it is to brag that "your" brand has the best doesn't change that the vast majority of sales and thus revenue happen at a 2-300 price point and not 1k. AMD's assets are a fraction of Intel's and have continued to dwindle. They need to reestablish themselves as a functional business before blowing insane research and development myoney on being the best. I'd be flat disappointed if Intel didn't have the top performing chips as they're many magnitudes larger as a company.
What I'm excited about and the most impressive thing here is how much of a jump they're making. Even the 40% increase, let alone double in some applications.