Okay, just let me made a short recap. Despite the laughs of the majority of the users and journalists during the last 2 years, all our leaks about Zen have become true:
- Zen IPC at Broadwell-E level
- Supported DDR4-3200
- At last 4GHz of frequency
- AMD marketing strategy
- And a lot more.
Also, we said that Intel changed its own strategic plans through the commercialization of a 10 core version of Broadwell-E. The first version of Broadwell-E roadmap forecasted just an 8 core as flagship CPU.
Late 2014 Intel slide: 8 core Broadwell-E
Late 2015 Intel slide: 10 core Broadwell-E
Today we are seeing that Ryzen 8 core is as fast as Broadwell-E 8 core, so we were right: “Last, but not the least, the part of the news about Intel was true. It seems that Intel will commercialize a 10 cores Broadwell-E due to its own internal Zen simulations (Intel has some data we don't know, yet, and has skilled engineers that know what they do). Zen will have 8 cores, while Broadwell-E 10 cores. So, Intel will have the “King of the Hill”, but Zen seems to be very good in the mid range of the market (AKA, gaming and enthusiast configurations)”. In our article “Speculations about Zen, after our April's Fool”, 2 April 2016.
Now, we have a new and awesome news: Intel could commercialize a 12c/24t Skylake-X CPU, in order to keep the peak of the hill. In other words, Intel will try to counter-attack Ryzen using the same strategy used by AMD until now: “Moar Coars!”. Ironic, isn't it?