It's not that much on average but your point is valid.
The comparisons of Zen to older Intel CPU architectures such as Sandy, Ivy or even Haswell are mostly irrelevant. That is because by the time Zen launches in 2017, Skylake will be 1.5 years old (August 2015), will have been superseded by Kaby Lake, and Cannonlake will be around the corner. It's ludicrous to suggest that all this time people wait for Zen but then start comparing Zen to older Intel CPUs such as Haswell-E (August 2014 series) or Skylake (August 2015 series). Even 2016 Broadwell-E and Kaby Lake won't be the main competition to Zen for that long in 2017. As long as Zen is a 2017 launch product, its main competition will become Skylake-E and Cannon Lake.
Besides, someone who bought Haswell-E in 2014-2015 or Skylake in 2015 has enjoyed all that performance until the day Zen launches. If we buy the argument that 2017 Zen is worth waiting for, why not wait another year for Icelake? These types of arguments become circular in nature.
That's why I didn't even bother waiting for Zen. With how well Intel's modern CPUs hold value, there is no point at all waiting for Zen. One can just as easily purchase i7-6700K/i7 6800K BW-E and if Zen is really that good, just sell the Intel platform and upgrade to Zen in 2017. If Zen flops, you get to enjoy a proper fast CPU that's fast enough to drive Polaris, Vega, Pascal, instead of still using some outdated Nehalem, i5 Sandy or worse Bulldozer/Vishera, etc.
Also, Intel's weakest CPUs are in the sub-$250 segment but if Zen is initially only launching as an 8-core, it seems AMD is targeting the high-end. AMD's biggest problem is that many of the high-end enthusiasts will have upgraded to Intel with 2013-2015 Haswell/E, 2015-2016 Skylake/Kaby Lake/BW-E. It's not a surprise that Intel is experiencing record i7 sales in modern times. It becomes a tricky situation for anyone who wants a new 14nm GPU in 2016 because if you want the upcoming cards launching in June-July, no CPU from Nehalem, Sandy i5 (or below) or AMD series is fast enough to max them out at 1080p 60Hz. That means if someone is waiting until 2017 for Zen, they cannot even upgrade to 14nm cards until then too. That's a crappy compromise if you ask me. :thumbsdown: That's why AMD delaying Zen to 2017 is a horrible mistake.