> an 8 core processor is awesome

Yeah but there's no way this thing has the thermal or power capacity to actually run that 8-core CPU at its rated specs. This already happened with the 6-core in the previous gen, and it certainly doesn't look like Apple did anything to improve thermal capacity in this refresh. Hopefully they at least addressed the lack of VRM power delivery, but that doesn't seem likely.

So you're taking a platform that was already pushed past its thermal & power capacities, and increased the thermal & power load by another 30% (keep in mind these are all still on Intel's 14nm that hasn't really changed, so no efficiency improvements here). Maybe the reviews will be surprising, but I wouldn't bet on it.