I get what you're saying, but 3Dnow! is an x86 instruction set extension, not a CPU model

After the amazing Core 2 series... Sandy Bridge was the last great Intel CPU that ushered in amazing price/performance/power ratios, since then it's been relatively small increases whilst AMD fumbled with Bulldozer, Piledriver, Steamroller and Excavator.

AMD did have a few good chips. The FX 8120 overclocked like a champ and was cheap on release, whilst the Phenom 2 x6 1090T also gave Nahelem a run for it's money when you pushed the NB clock up.

Ryzen is segmenting it's L3 cache between quad-core configurations, so there should be a little bit of a penalty there.

Engineering Samples should be a good baseline of what to expect, they were accurate for Phenom, Phenom 2 and Bulldozer, so there is precedent.

And the Ryzen Engineering sample on a per-core basis was trending around a Core i5.
Energy efficiency was also worst than Intel.

Yeah. Dual Cores need to take a hike already. Ditch the Core i3's. A Quad-core Ryzen could make a pretty potent gaming rig at a low price.

Even when Intel was loosing to AMD's K7 and K8 architectures, Intel didn't really respond with price cuts in any extreme extent.
Intel was still out-selling AMD significantly thanks to agreements Intel had with OEM's.

It really depends how much marketshare AMD can claw away from Intel as to whether Intel will respond in-kind with price cuts, AMD could win over Enthusiasts and Gamers, which has been seing significant growth over the past few years.

The 6900K has a ton of features that Ryzen doesn't and is excuse enough for Intel to maintain it's high profit margins on those chips.

According to Intel, their profit margin is around 60-70%.

These chips take years to design.

Intels however has a few counters to AMD's Ryzen dropping next refresh, Coffee-Lake will introduce Intels first 6-core processor on the mainstream socket. (Likely Socket 1151.)

Which has been common knowledge since Intel inveiled it's roadmap a couple years ago.

Disagree. Buy the best you can afford, regardless if it is Intel or AMD. Do not reward a company for less than optimal products.

Probably should wait for someone like Anandtech to do a proper review on Ryzen before you make that assumption. ;)

Funny. I had the 1090T Overclocked to 4ghz with the NB clock at 3ghz with 1.45v and two Radeon 6950's unlocked into 6970's, overclocked and over volted in Crossfire powering three 1920x1080 screens (5760x1080) and it lasted years.
Later had a 1055T and a 1035T which are still running in their respective systems today.

In-fact, I gave my grandmother the old Phenom 2 x6. Because you know. Emails and stuff and it's still solid after all these years.

The Phenoms only really came into their own once you overclocked them, once you push the NB clock up to 3ghz, it can boost IPC by a good 10-15% in some instances which gave Nahelem a run for it's money.

But you are right that thermals were shit. But honestly, if you have a Radeon 6990, you obviously don't care about thermals or power consumption anyway.

Sadly, you just likely had a dud. Can happen with intel as well.

Some games do use 8 cores and 6-cores, but it's not like it's needed to any super great degree.

4-cores is still more than enough for the majority of games.

yeah it was a while ago and couldn't remember if it was a feature or something to do with the model I but that was the only thing I could remember about that CPU

I am officially erect. If these are only slightly underpar from Kaby lakes i might be able to afford to build a new rig. But the best news is that I'm hearing they're performing better than Kaby dollar for dollar.

If all these leaks turn out to be true, AMD should make Jim Keller a statue in their HQ, and have always an office ready waiting for him whenever he wants to come back.

Sorry, meant Vega 20 in the first sentence of your 2nd paragraph.  You said Vega 10 wasn't supposed to launch until 2018/19, when it launches this year. And while the PS4 Pro only uses ~160W+ in probably the more extreme cases, it's obvious it was built to handle more.

Just to be clear, I don't see the PS4 launching until late 2019.  That's two years to see price drops in the components that are out this year, and a year if the 20 in fact launches in 2018.  Again, I'm leaning more towards an underclocked 10.  I just do not see them in any case aiming so low as to go with a Vega 11.  Even if MS was toying with the idea of abandoning the console market, this would 100% change their mind, and give them an easy win if they target the 10.  A ~8Tflops vs ~12Tflops gap can not be ignored. 

As far as prices go, they do drop quit quickly in the GPU world.  The R9 Fury, for example, came out in July of 2015 for $549 (more for an actual graphics card using the chip), but you can get a Fury graphics card for less than $280, now.  Sometime this year, that will probably drop even more.  Sony will also pay a much cheaper price for the chip itself, since it buys in bulk.  Also, keep in mind that Sony has ALWAYS launched at a loss.  It is usually only a slight lose, but it still allows them to put in better chips and make up for the lose with SW sales.  And now with how much money they are raking in with PS Plus, I wouldn't doubt they stretch it a little more if they have to.

Depending on Intel's H2H gaming performance with Coffee Lake , i could be in the market for a 1600X , 1700/X as a replacement for my aging 3770K @ 4.6Ghz/2400Mhz DDr3 build. Been finding reason to upgrade difficult past years due to mostly everything being GPU bound at 1440p-4K.

True.  Though, even if it is a little below it, that ~$800 difference really can't be ignored.  But, like you said, it depends on others willingness to switch.

Reviews coming Feb 28th

Due to how long its taking for Ryzen to come out , while i don't question their value across the spectrum, i am confused as to the legs it will have coming to market just matching Broadwell architecture.

Everyone knows Intel's consumer level I7's tend to have always lead in gaming performance over the 6-8 core Extreme variants time and time again, so while Intel's ticks have been unimpressive for major upgrades, truth is there will be Coffee Lake come fall with another 15% IPC improvement.

Right now Ryzen at launch has a 14-15%  deficit of single threaded performance to Kaby lake, and that will double with Coffee Lake.

I guess i need to see case scenario's where 8 core 16 thread Ryzen will truly outshine your latest i7 in games, considering it will occupy that same $300 range. More threads/cores sounds cool, but i would need it to prove a difference maker. IPC is still very important in a multi threaded environment since the first few threads still handle a lot of the heavy lifting.

...then you gotta consider what difference it makes at 1440-2160p resolution where games less CPU dependent.