Well it looks like that 16% number was from benchmarks using xess performance and FSR performance configuration.
If Intel still beat AMD when FSR was enabled with their chip and xess was used with the Intel chip I'm impressed.
That shows that xess has a much greater increase in performance from last gen.
But we'll have to see the picture quality.
I think hardware based upscaling is better than FSR in any case.
I'm curious about the ray trace performance as well.
I personally don't think that Intel fudged the numbers. They have been pushing improvements across the board since Ryzen 5000 series released.
It's unfortunate that they had the 13th and 14th gen debacle. In which, unfortunately, my CPU was affected. I had to return mine and get a new one.
I think the main thing about the Intel chips is the power draw. Even though I don't really care about that, a lot of people do.