So the 980 and 970 came out and everyone acted like the sky was falling.  However I think a few things need to be pointed out:

1) The 290 series is around a year old at this point.  They went a full year with no price drops (Which is unheard of).  Of course the 900 series would look good!

-Before you shout "BUT LITECOIN MINING" remember that the $700 780 Ti wasn't exactly putting pressure on AMD to lower prices either lol.

2) Further analysis is showing that Maxwell isn't really dominating anything in 4K, which is the market the 290 series is aimed at.  Here is an interesting article that shows 290 CF = 970 SLI for less money:

http://www.techspot.com/review/898-geforce-gtx-970-sli-4k-gaming/

3) I don't think we have the full story yet.  At first the 980 seemed to dominate in every game, but more and more games are coming out that prove the 290X does indeed trade blows with the 980 fairly often.  Yes, the 980 uses 30% less energy (In gaming) but it also costs 40% more.

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Ryse-PC-259308/Specials/Test-Technik-1138543/

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Sniper-Elite-3-Performance-Maxwell-vs-Hawaii-DX11-vs-Mantle

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Middle-earth-Shadow-Mordor-Performance-Testing/4K-Testing-and-Closing-Thought?page=1

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_980_STRIX_OC/12.html

I guess what I am saying is that with the inevitable price-cuts made to the Rx 200 line, AMD is in my opinion still totally competitive with the Nvidia's latest series.  Yes in 1080p the 900 series will always win, but who in their right mind gets an ultra high end GPU for 1080p these days?!  PLEASE keep in mind that I am not trying to prove the 200 series dominance in any way.  I am just saying that it really isn't as bad as most initially thought.

P.S.  This is clearly for PC enthusiasts so please keep that in mind before you comment.

EDIT: http://wccftech.com/amd-tonga-xt-r9-m295x-benchmark-surfaces-impressive-results/

The M295X is a downclocked 285X. It beats a full 770 by almost 10% and I expect the 285X to be clocked at least 30% faster. Hell the 285X really might match the 290.

Hope they make a 295X!

Well, I'm not that much in that discussion because I'm mainly a NVidia guy (better hardware drivers). Anyway, I don't see a 970 as a bad thing even if you want just 1080p. Games requirements are getting higher after the new gen and having a little extra fat available for that price so you can keep going in 1080p at high settings for some years is a sweet deal for the price. I wouldn't buy a weaker and cheaper GPU simply because I would have to replace it way sooner than a 970.

The only strange thing here is that I think that the 900 series can really take some market from the Titans and looking at profit margins it can be a hard deal for NVidia.

For the record Ryse looked amazing.

I don't get what all that 4k is all about. Neither 290X nor 980 are powerfull enough to properly run games in 4K. Maybe if you reduce the details to nothing. The successors won't fair much better. Current gen GPUs can barely handle 1080p for current games on ultra and proper AA. Until single GPUs are properly beefed up 4K will be for dual GPUs only. And if you're going dual GPU, the vendor or price doesn't really matter anyway.

AMD petty much had and will probably always have the edge when it comes to price/performance and fast memory speeds. Until Nvidia realizes that you actually need high memory bandwidth for high resolutions.

I will look forward to the 390X vs 980ti duel.

" Yes in 1080p the 900 series will always win, but who in their right mind gets an ultra high end GPU for 1080p these days?!"

Many people.

As torok says, game requirements are starting to rise to almost absurd levels (6GB of VRAM to use Ultra textures? Really?) and let's not forget that even with the lower level coding that DX12 will supposedly bring (which by the way is another winning point for Nvidia as the 9x0 series are the first one to fully support DX12), PC gamers will still need more powerful GPUs to play the same games as console gamers.

So an R9 or a 9x0 series to game at 1080p is not that silly, specially now with the prices of the 290 and the 970.

With that said, the difference in the high end market are nowadays so small, that going for the cheapest option is probably the better choice. Unless you game at 4K or have an Eyefinity/Surround setup with 1440 or 1600p monitors, in which case every single bit of power counts... although given that you'll have to go with 2 or 3 cards, it comes down again to price (3x290 or 2x980?).

Well, I bought myself a 970 mostly cause my 7850 is getting pretty old and I wanted to be ready for the Witcher 3 so I think the 900 series are mainly for the people that are looking to upgrade but can't really wait for the stacked ram gpu... Also, if you look at a lot of benchmarks for the 970 vs 290x

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1355?vs=1059

You can see that they perform very competitively but with the added advantage of Nvidia having better Driver support and some new features and atm, the 970 and r9 290x cost about the same

Now, as for the 980, granted its not the zomg killer considering it costs $500+ vs $350 for the 290x, but it does still perform faster in many/most cases so I think for the people that want to upgrade to the best of the best without going into dual gpu level, the 980 will be their choice

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1351?vs=1059

Now obviously, if you are upgrading for a 780 or a 290x, you wont receive zomfg benefits when going upto a 980 but if you are one of those people who are just upgrading, a 970 or a 980 might be a great choice none the less

And many people get an ultra high end gpu for 1080p cause many games require them to play them at max (a lot due to terrible optomization while others just due to pretty graphix)

Honestly, I view all these cards as 1440p...at best.

290x is still very good card, but IMO, 970 hype train is too big for it to survive much longer.

The Titan line was a a great way to trick some ethusiastes out of their money and nothing more.  Everyone has figured that out, and Nvidia knows they have.  They have no problem getting rid of it at this point considering how much cheaper Maxwell is to manufacture.

I'll agree that the 970 is somewhat justifiable at 1080p considering its price, but its still kinda silly imo.

P.S. Please drop the whole "driver" montra.  Me and my brother switched from Nvidia to AMD because Nvidia's drivers were so terrible (At least at the time).  Neither company really has worse drivers though on average.

I'm always happy when new GPU's are released; that means massive price cuts for the 1 year-old chipsets!
CPU's are a different beast though, prices here are still ridiculous if you want any kind of bang.

1) LOL current gen GPU's can more than just "handle" 1080p.  My 3 year old 7970 can handle BL2 ar 120 FPS (Absolutily no drops) with x8 Supersampling enabled.  No this is not a hard to run game, but my 7970 can also max out litterally every game I have ever played in 1080p (Including Crysis 3).  At this point even $180 cards are maxing out 1080p with a little overclocking.

2) It is not at all impossible to run games in 4K on one GPU either.  Anything as strong as a 7970/780 or better can easily power though without AA and at medium settings.  However half the time they can handle Ultra too, because some games like Skyrim, Titanfall, and Borderlands aren't too hard to run.

3) I am looking forward to the duel as well!  However I think it is gonna be more of a bloodbath than a fight.  All rumors point to the 390X being about twice as strong as the 290X.  Goodluck catching that on 28nm.