And it has been proven that Anandtech's testing is the clear outlier here - have you even seen the GTA V results? Historically AMD has been ~20% behind, now they are 20% ahead? Something isn't right.
http://www.3dcenter.org/artikel/launch-analyse-amd-ryzen-2000/launch-analyse-amd-ryzen-2000-seite-3
That right there shows how much of an outlier Anandtech's results are. I'm actually curious to see further testing from Anandtech on this, as there is no way a 2700X should be that far ahead (or even faster than) a 8700K, as shown by every other reviewer. And no, its not due to the Meltdown/Spectre patches, I myself have applied the latest BIOS / windows updates on my 6700K system and whilst I/O results are definitely lower, gaming performance hasn't really been affected at all. Memory timings? Well, if you go to computerbases review, you will see that a 2700X with highly tuned DDR4-3466 comes within 5% of a 8700K using the same timings - which is actually very impressive stuff. That is actually what I would call close to a 'wash', using your words. But thats only one site, I would definitely like to see more testing done on this by other reviewers or perhaps end users who own both a 8700K and 2700X.