And as time goes on packing in more cores at competitive prices will not be an issue for Intel. It'll take Intel a bit of time to get off their ass sure but once they do it's back to obscurity for AMD because they just do not have the resources to go punch for punch with Intel in the CPU market every year. Much like they can occasionally close the gap to Nvidia only to then fall behind for years and years.
I get that it's fun to root for the underdog but the level of overhype around the internet when AMD releases something that doesn't suck and is actually competitive is ridiculous.
The overhype is created by idiots online. People who don't understand science and allow themselves to be carried away. With computer products the information you need is always out there. But all it takes is some pleb with no understanding of science to start saying "Vega is going to beat the 1080Ti !" and that's it, idiocy ensues.
I tried my level best to keep people grounded both on the 400 series launch (expect 980 perf max) and Vega (expect 1070). But all it takes is one video from AMD and uh oh, it's gonna have the 1080Ti's head on a stick

God I wish the roll eyes emoticon was better on here.
As for your other comments about AMD not matching Intel on IPC? actually they have. They got as far as Broadwell E which was more than far enough. They have superior multi threading too, so clock per clock their CPUs are actually better than Broadwell E. What they do not have *yet* is Intel's clock speed. But you pay an incredibly heavy price for that, and it's mostly a waste of money.
You can now quite easily buy a 1700 for £270. Compared to the £999 Intel launched the 5960x for I would say that is amazing value for money. Right now that is all you
need noting that I have put emphasis on need. Need as in, it's good enough for games, it's good enough for video encoding and rendering and has more cores than you can use right now if you are just a basic desktop user. If you
need more (like really need them like I do) then there is Threadripper. Are Intel CPUs quicker? yes, but you are now paying a stupid price for them (well, you were before, but at least you didn't look quite as stupid because AMD had nothing).
Given that I would say 99% of people buy computers based on what they need rather than what their green eyes want? I would say AMD have hit a home run. Intel have Coffee lake coming so that's another 3-5% but you will pay a very high price for it. And again, we come back to what you need and whether it will be worth it.
Intel could have done some damage to AMD with Coffee lake. Some serious, serious damage. But the fact is they won't because they have pretty much alienated every one on Z170 and Z270 so that they can't just buy a CPU upgrade. God, if they'd done that then yes, AMD may have gotten a little sweaty but as it stands? haha, no damage.
Remember, for about £60 you can buy a board that you can drop a R5 1600 into and happy days. Let's see what Z370 boards cost shall we?
Intel know its audience. They know they are so brand loyal they would never buy AMD so they treat 'em mean to keep 'em keen. And it works, but any one with half a brain will buy AMD. They've had their "honeymoon" period now, now they can drop Ryzen prices. They even made a comment recently saying how cheaply they were making them. Not cheaply as in poor quality, cheaply as in cheap to make. That's probably why the 1700 has dropped about £60 already.