I'd say you're almost perfectly right in this case. Almost, because I'm 99.99% sure that if that test suite puts SKL on par with Zen 2, then ICL will never have a 18% advantage against SKL in a million years in the same suite. So while you're right about that confusion and those differences you've mentioned, I was simply saying he can't state general advantage numbers based on one test and using the 18% number from a completely different source. I'm sure we'll see a somewhat better comparison between all of these when ICL comes to the desktop.Let me explain why both of you are right.
Stilt is doing testing that's entirely single threaded. Due to the architectural choices between AMD and Intel, SMT gains are better on AMD.
So in strictly single threaded mode, they can be equal, yet at the same AMD is being faster per thread.
Also regarding AT's SpecCPU 2017 testing suite, annoyingly they are running the _Rate suite set at 1 rather than just running the one meant for single thread, which is the Integer/FP speed suite. But with SpecCPU 2006 suite they are running the Speed suite.
Like, what are they doing?
According to AT's Spec tests, Icelake is 30%+ faster than Whiskeylake, not 18%. Intel's choice of being so exact with gains are strange. Why not just say 15-20%? 18%? Are you sure its not 17.9995%?
Let's also call it performance per clock, not "IPC". I'm sick of this term. People get extremely confused and start arguing about stupid things. Like they say its per cycles and it performs different in reality.
No, its called performance per clock.
Oh wait...