And yes, the GTX 680 was a mid-range part marketed as a high-end product because AMD flopped with their 7970. At $500+ MSRP, it was still around 20% slower than the GTX 680 (same MSRP) on pretty much all fronts.
Yes and no. That situation was artificially created by Nvidia.
Nvidia purposefully held-off on releasing GK110-based cards because there was do decent competition from AMD. Made sense to wait.
Honestly, the 680 was mid-range from the get-go. The GK110 tapped out right after the 680 launched, and could have been used in consumer cards.
The 780, 780 Ti, and Titan were just SERIOUSLY delayed members of the GeForce 6 series.
LOL Are you both for real? Nvidia have never held back cards before and haven't done so since, yet you both think that Nvidia held back that one time because of the performance of the 7970. Not a chance, they didn't have anything else. There was nothing else ready. They were damn lucky that AMD dropped the ball with the 7xxx series cards.
Do you really think Nvidia gave up millions in revenue by holding back the GK110 chip? Do you think any shareholder would have been happy with that situation? They had a gap in the quadro market that they were filling by putting two GK104's on the same gpu, they had a huge order from Oakridge waiting to be filled, lol and you think they held back because AMD's 7xxx series wasn't that good?
Nvidia didn't artificially create any such situation.
Nvidia don't like been in second place, They have shown that they won't wait long before releasing a better card if they have to. The 680 and the 7970 were close in performance, especially with the release of the Ghz edition. Don't you think Nvidia would have released a more powerful card then, if they had it? But they didn't.
You want proof of that? Look at the 780ti, the titan black, the titan z. Look at earlier cards like the 8800 gt, 8800 gtx, 8800gtx ultra. NVidia have shown time and time again that they will release more and more powerful cards, and that they will release cards even when there is no competition, look at the 9800 cards. AMD had nothing out to even touch the 8800 cards.
And yet somehow you believe that for the GK110 that they waited for the one time in their history. LOL. No they didn't.