Sure 7nm is going to cost more per wafer than 14nm but where are you getting the much more from?
Also the 200mm2 die includes a load of extras that aren't part of Zen 2, at least not part of the compute die that's being fabricated on 7nm, either way i don't get the negativity, 70% yields are quiet good on a new node, i would have thought that would have been greeted with a little more positivity.
Personally I'm not expecting 5Ghz, IMO it will be more like 4.5-6Ghz.
Look at estimates from generation to generation. GF 14NM was also a licensed version of the Samsung 14NM node,so in reality it wasn't that new. If you look at the Zen 2 picture,the IO is definitely bigger than the CPU die. Also,the substrate has room for another chiplet.So that is 2X70~80MM2 7NM chiplets,and another larger IO die. The total silicon area will be larger than 14NM Ryzen.
The rumour says 12C at launch not 16C,with consumer 16C being launched later and people are treating it like its the end of the world. People are just overhyping this all too much. Ryzen 2 not only "needs" to be 16C,but also clock close to 5GHZ,run fast RAM,probably have reasonable power consumption,not be hard to cool and also be not more expensive than 12NM Ryzen 2000. I would love it to be all that. It would be an Athlon 64 all over again.
But,I really don't understand why Ryzen launching with 12C or even 16C being initially gated to a limited edition and expensive FX CPU,being a problem.
What is more important for many of us,is single threaded performance going up,and memory-CCX latency being improved.
If anyone of these metrics don't quite get there,you know will happen. I would rather go in with slightly muted expectations and be pleasantly surprised. Even with Zen,look what happened when it didn't clock as high as people wanted,or run RAM as fast as people wanted,they got dissapointed even though it was a good product.