Yes Intel CPU's have higher IPC, but not as much as y'all think.
Problem is that Windows handicaps AMD CPU's and GPU's, and not only Windows, but also other closed source archaic software like Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, and even Flash Player.
In linux, these problems are not present. On the contrary, the full feature set of AMD chipsets and tight mandatory feature set of AMD chipset mobos, provide a flawless and full-featured experience in linux, which uses a lot more modern features than software consoles and the entertainment software thereon.
Serious raytracing applications in linux for instance, use OpenCL acceleration of AMD GP-GPU's and equal load balancing over all cores (can't be done when counting in "threads").
The fact that the AMD CPU's are a bit older, makes then particularly tried and tested in terms of power management and control.
In linux, encryption applications like LUKS (most experienced linux users de facto encrypt their partitions), do not use the RNG's or encryption microcode of Intel CPU's, because they've been proven spiked and untrustworthy. This is not the case for AMD CPU's, and those are very efficient in decrypting, but also for instance in transcoding, two things that are very much needed. The transcoding part of Intel is a joke, it hardly works, and if it works, it seriously sucks, the QuickSync video acceleration feature of Intel has the worst quality deterioration and the worst performance, IF it works, which most of the time, is not the case. When using encryption, Intel systems, that have to encrypt and decrypt everything in application software because they can't be trusted, are really bottlenecking to and from storage because of that, whereas AMD flies in real-time en-/decryption, because it is accelerated by the CPU and - insofar an OpenCL compatible GP-GPU is used in linux - also by the GPU, whereby the GPU can directly access the system memory and vice versa, a trick that is simply not stable on Intel machines, most of which run on mobos that even block that feature entirely because of "gaming enhancements" that are de facto performance handicaps sold for a premium.
Intel CPU's are faster in single threaded performance, no doubt about that, and they have a smaller litho so they are more power efficient, but they also make customers pay extra to do their beta-testing, and they've brought out some serious crap recently, like the Haswell V1 series, with the faulty TIM under the spreader and the badly placed power regulation SMD components on the flipside of the die. These are the kind of obvious design faults that a customer that pays extra for the name "Intel", should be able to expect not being present. If one pays premium for advertised extra quality, one should not have to settle with products with obvious design faults in my opinion. Mind you, AMD also makes similar faults, like with the Bulldozer FX chips, which were not properly designed and didn't perform as expected, but at least they were cheap, and they worked more than decently enough for the price, and can still provide a very good experience to the customers for years to come, which isn't the case with Haswell, just like it wasn't the case with Pentium D, because the hardware suffers way too much from the design flaws to provide the parts with a long lifespan that reflects the premium price.
Open source programs like Digikam or Darktable render previews and slideshows much faster than Lightroom for instance, because Lightroom uses no acceleration technology. Same goes for GIMP versus Photoshop for instance, Photoshop uses no acceleration technology. If "productivity" is defined by the use of archaic closed source entertainment plug-ins for a software console (like is the case with Adobe CS software on MS-Windows), then the one that defines this terms like that, obviously has never tasted the huge modern performance and reliability of professional open source applications on a bleeding edge linux install. Because once you install linux on a modern system, and give it the same chance you give your software console, there is no going back. Especially on AMD machines, that perform much closer to (and often better) than Intel machines in linux, especially in certain applications where linux can flex its load balancing muscles. If you've experienced both AMD and Intel on linux and with open source software, you know that Anandtech is an ad prostitute with Intel and nVidia on top of the list in the little black book, and that the "superiority" of Intel CPU's in terms of performance, insofar used for real use and not just for idling, is wildly exaggerated.
