How quickly things change. Just nine months ago, Intel introduced the Core i7-7700K, its seventh in a line of four-core, eight-thread enthusiast processors that stretches back to 2010. We contented ourselves with about a 5% performance increase on average from that chip compared to the Core i7-6700K before it. A proven formula got a little bit better, and that was that.

Shortly after that quiet bit of incremental progress, AMD upended the status quo like an errant speck of dust in a 193-nm stepper with its Zen architecture and Ryzen CPUs. Builders could suddenly get more cores and threads for their dollar than ever before. Every one of those chips was overclockable, and they didn't suffer from nipping and tucking to satisfy product-segmentation whims. Most importantly, AMD spoke directly to the hearts and minds of the brightest spot of today's PC market: enthusiasts and gamers. Nobody less than CEO Lisa Su talked up the company's focus on high-performance products for that audience, and AMD backed up that talk with a full range of desktop chips spanning prices from about $100 to $1000 and everywhere in between.

In the face of this onslaught, the i7-7700K easily maintained its dominance in single-threaded performance and high-refresh-rate gaming, but it was suddenly matched in just about every other measure of performance by chips selling for about $100 less. Whatever Intel's plans may have been at that time, it was clear that the four-core, eight-thread formula wasn't going to be enough to hold the line any longer for mainstream PCs.