No, Intel can't discount the competition. But given development times (for the millionth time), hexacore coffee lake was planned around the time Zen was being planned (ie, b/4 Intel had any insider info). Whether there is an 8 core variant is just a guess right now (given the source). Ice Lake, and more importantly, Tiger Lake, were being developed with some knowledge of what AMD was developing - so those will be a more interesting markers (though Intel also had it's own design targets in mind). Given the 3-5 year development window (ticks vs tocks and whatnot), Intel was planning on increasing core counts prior to Zen.