I'm very much excited to see amd finally catch up after all this time. Now hold on to your butts (excuse the jurassic Park reference) but let me take you on a little bit of Nvidia chip history starting with Fermi for simplicity's sake since it was recent.
Why was the gtx 480/580 called GF100/GF110 because it stands for Geforce Fermi chip number 100/110 these pieces of Silicon had wider memory buses, more Cuda cores and more ram (3gb) etc they were the top of the line. Now look at the gtx 470/570 these chips were also GF100/GF110 But had smaller bus widths at 320 instead of 384 now go all the way down to the gtx460/560 GF104/GF114 finally we get the 256 bus width we are looking for (remember this) Now we look at the gtx 590 also GF110 384 bit bus....
So here's where things get interesting.
Amd releases the 7000 series Nvidia says in a press release we expected more from amd.
Now we get a Gtx 680 but it's GK104 256 bit bus... Um what (we knew there was a gk110 from a leak which means a possible Gk100 was in the works as well) then we get a gtx 690 wait 2 of the exact same chips used in the 680 in one card this was never done previously in the history of video cards except for the Asus Mars series..... The gtx590 used chips much closer to a 570 as did all the previous dual cards excluding the Mars series.
So because amd failed to be competitive we got a gtx660 re-branded as a gtx 680 and it was competitive /beat out the original 7970 amd's top card. Fast forward a little later and we see the 7970ghz edition which is actually different silicon. Nvidia wasting little time drops titan a cut down gk110 384 bit bus (hey there's the chip that is supposed to be the 770 the 570's true successor) some time passes and they release the 780 (okay finally their top card has the correct bus width and ram configuration and the chip number is correct or is It? this folks was the gk100 that was never released the true 680 and I'll prove that in just a moment) fast forward again we have amd launch its 3rd reiteration of graphics core next the R9 290/290X hmm how does Nvidia respond 770ti (Gk110 384 bit bus a little cut down from 780 hey its the real gtx 670!!) and the gtx 780ti (GK110 384 bit bus check um it's still a cut down GK110 oh hello your the real gtx 770 which is on its 3rd name change.
We still have yet to see a fully enabled GK110 folks which was supposed to be the real gtx 780 kind of like how the gtx 580 was the fully functional/enabled GF110 and the 570 and 560ti were cut down versions of the GF110 chip hell we still haven't really seen a real Kepler refresh there's no GK114 or Gk116 or 118 why because amd is not pushing Nvidia to reply with them yet. Why do you think no matter what amd releases Nvidia can release weeks later and catch even their manufacturers off guard. Because they have the chips to do so because amd is not being competitive.
If gtx 800 series is released in Q1-2014 I guarantee it will be 28nm why because they have unused GK chips lying around that they can re-brand and launch as 28nm "maxwell"
I for one will be waiting to see what the future holds but I hope amd can increase pressure on Nvidia to make them release properly in the future
I wholly agree with the sly product line repositioning by nvidia due to lack of competition by amd. Have you noticed how the top end cards have all conveniently doubled in price at the same time? :shadedshu
Each generation should leapfrog the other in performance, like we used to see a few years ago. Therefore, to properly compete with Titan, the 290x should have been something like 30-40% or more faster in everything. On top of that, it should have had an effective and classy cooler like the Titan has. What we see instead, is a decent amd GPU and board that only matches Titan in performance with a crap cooler slapped on it. That isn't progress.
Sorry to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I swear it feels like amd and nvidia are operating as a cartel to keep their respective positions at all times with nvidia as performance kind and amd as underdog. This latest generation is a perfect example, because it's blatantly obvious that amd could have put a decent cooler on there without affecting the price much. More like $10 at the most and have had waay better reviews. That would have really opened up the performance of the 290x. Instead they've hamstrung it and gone for the effing "value" market again.
Once again, this isn't progress.
You're not quite right about the GTX 590 though. This uses the full GF110 GPUs and is literally two GTX 580s in one card, like the GTX 690 is two GTX 680s. However, the clocks are significantly reduced on the 590 due to heat and power constraints. That card could run at full speed if it had an appropriate cooler, likely water cooling.
Also, I doubt nvidia could just rebrand the current chips and call them Maxwell. They may update the architecture a bit, like amd did with the 290x and call that Maxwell. I have a feeling it's going to be more than that, though.
and also successfully deliver such products which milking the cash cow 
