Not really unexpected, especially since Intel really didn't offer huge performances with their last generation. My guess is that they realized that they screwed up and are working hard and fast to get the next gen out ASAP. Will it beat the Zen3 or be on part with it? Donno yet, maybe. In the last few years the processors really haven't been that much more powerful and it seems like they are running out of ideas. Start throwing more cores in there, is that next? Not sure; unfortunately there is only so much you can do to optimize pipelines and push the technology. In the 90's you were stupid to buy top of the line, processors were changing so fast it was almost out dated faster than you could put together a machine. 00's was a bit better, but there was always that sweet spot of buying higher end, but not too high. 10's it was more of buying the high end if you can, and let it run for 5 to 8 years and then do it again. I predict that we'll see in the 20's, that most of the lower end processors won't be used nearly as much, people will all gravitate toward the high end and keep those machines for 5 to 10 years. If Intel and AMD focused on keeping the price of the high end processors down a bit, it can really drive this and move many people to these processors. If they keep the high end processors much higher, then it will hurt this prediction, but it seems like it would be in their interest to get more people on one or two processors instead of having 5 to 10 different ones.