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Isn't the NX rumored to use a custom Polaris chip?

It is rumored. 

http://www.redgamingtech.com/nintendo-nx-uses-polaris-gpu-vulkan-2x-performance-of-ps4-analysis/

I don't have anything against Digital Foundry or the other tech sites that have reported those same things, and all that's said on that video is technically true, but... The problem is that all the conclusions taken from the leaked info don't take into consideration the conditions in which those benchmarks where made.

Were they engineering samples or retail chips? Where they running at full clock speeds or not? Were they using drivers that supported those new chips? We don't know, and all of that is important when it comes to know the real performance of a chip.

For example, at the Game Developers Conference, AMD briefly showed Polaris 10 running Hitman at 1440p at max settings with constant 60fps. That is something that only Fury X (from AMD cards) can do, yet we're being told that it will have R9 290X performance.

Also, assuming its performance based on the shaders and CU units is missleading. Take the recently announced GTX 1080, that features 2560 cores and yet it's alledgly more powerful than the GTX 980Ti or Titan X which have 2816 and 3072 cores respectively.

Now, I'm not trying to say that Polaris 10 will compete with the 1080, far from it, but just because it's "mainstream" it doesn't mean that it can't outperform the current cards.

It sucks so bad that a Polaris 10/Radeon 490 won't even beat a Geforce 1070, let alone a 1080.

So stupid of AMD to once again ignore the high-end. Always making the same mistake.

And I'm outraged since I have to wait until 2017 before I can upgrade from my R9 290.

Interesting... but not really surprising or unexpected. AMD better not take too long to get back into the high end market. Ive always been an amd/ati fan and i want to give them my business but if vega isnt atleast close to launch by the time nvidia launches their next gen titan cards im switching to team green

I'm all for AMD producing a good card at an affordable price, because it starts a bit of price war which should benefit all users :)

But, what if 490X was within 5% of the 1070 and launched at $299, for example?

Of course, you wouldn't upgrade since the jump from your 290 wouldn't be as big, but how would react the market?

Now that would be great ofc for sales in the mainstream segment for AMD, but I still think having the high-end and performance crown is very important. AMD is seen as second rate by many gamers when they almost never have the crown. Nvidia understands the importance of this PR and having the high-end users on its side.

And yes, the performance of a 490X will never be enough for it to be worth it compared to a Radeon 290. And since most games don't support SLI/Crossfire nowadays buying two of them ain't an option either.

Of course. If Nvidia never releases the 1060 they will have that market locked down.