There really isn't any more FUD than there is wild conjecture and wishful thinking presented as fact on the other side.
Case in point...
The gap that the 1700 has to make up on the 7700K is in the neighborhood of 20-25% overall in gaming. Given that the overwhelming majority of gamers are still using 2 or 4 core cpus today (
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/) it is hard to imagine that game developers are going to focus on writing code that makes their games run better on 6 and 8 core systems to the detriment of the 2 and 4 core user experience.
I'm not saying that all things being equal users with more cores won't occasionally see better performance. What I am saying is that by opting for 1700 over a 7700K today you are not saving any money, but you are trading higher IPC and higher clocks in exchange for more cores. Additionally, you are banking on the notion that for some reason game developers are going to ignore their largest user base and start focusing on the 1-2% minority of users with 6 or more cores.
I'm sorry, but the actual "obvious choice" here is to look at 7700K performance in games, consider what that sort of IPC that might look like in a 6C/12T CFL cpu, and they wait to see how that pans out in terms of performance and actual pricing. If it's priced reasonably enough a 6C/12T CFL cpu should hit the sweet spot of high clocks/IPC and more cores. If CFL actually turns out just being the equivalent of a 7700K with 2 extra cores it will already dominate Ryzen, and honestly, that is really sort of a worst case scenario for Intel. (what are the chances of it performing worse than KBL?)
The only people that should be buying Ryzen now are people who:
1) Just like to tinker with new tech
2) Are on an extreme budget, and know they won't ever plop down $300-400 for cpu. The Ryzen 1600 is an excellent chip for this consumer
3) Have an immediate need/use for more cores, with gaming not being a primary concern.