GEN-5 Speed faster than advertised

Actually... It's a bit hairier than one would think when it comes to the FX series...  For example an FX 8-core CPU is more similar to a 4-core CPU with HT enabled.  While not a true 8-cores, the CPU can process upto 8 threads at one time, and in some instances appear as 8 individual cores to the OS.  The efficiency however depends greatly on how well the software is coded.

In virtualization, an FX-8350 is a beast of a CPU for the cost compared to an i7.  However, in single threaded applications, performance could suffer greatly, and applications with poor coding and built around the SMT instead of CMT method would choke horribly on an FX series CPU.  AMD Ryzen has since switched to SMT and is killing Intel in terms of multi-threaded performance, and staying on par in most single-threaded applications, sometimes falling slightly short...

Below is a diagram I grabbed off of wikipedia... You see the four modules, but looking at each module, you see two integer units for 8 total "cores", the modules also share a good bit of stuff, mostly cache, memory controller and pci-e lanes.  Great for specialty workloads like running ESXi/VMWare, horrible for most other things.
FX 8 Core CPU

Below is an Intel Skylake i7 Quad Core with SMT take note it has four cores but you can see everything shares a bit of cache, Memory Controller, among other things. Strangely, most normal people buying an i7 always thought they was getting an 8-core CPU as Intel and partners didn't state "Quad Core" and would always say, "with Hyper-threading".  Why the masses didn't go up in arms over that in the earlier core-series life is beyond me.
i7-6700k diagram

Ryzen... Is different... It's new, powerful, and does an amazing job at multi-threaded applications, I plan on waiting a bit for the bugs to be worked out, as is seen with any release of a brand new architecture.
I suggest reading this article if you wanna learn more about Ryzen... http://www.ocdrift.com/amd-ryzen-cpu-die-diagram-exposed/



ALL THAT JABBERING ASIDE... Most people honestly don't need any more than a dual core CPU like the Intel Pentium G3258, or a more modern Skylake Pentium... Seeing as Pentiums are now getting the HT treatment, they are more like i3 processors.  More than sufficient for the typical user.

I wish I had invested in AMD two years ago... $1.67/share and they are at $14.16/share now and could go even higher as the year goes on.  Could have made a killing on that.