Taking a look at the past several years of GPU releases, the GTX 400, 500, and 600 series all debuted with a flagship of $499. But most recently, the GTX 700 series raised the bar with the $649 GTX 780 at launch, and now the 780Ti at $699. The 780 only seemed like a good value because it performed close to the $999 GTX Titan. And even though it has now dropped to $499, I wonder if the upcoming GTX 800 series flagship will debut at anything less than the current $699 780Ti, unless the new Maxwell flagship will not be able to top Kepler's last stand.
Now it sounds like we are about to see a new GTX Titan and a GTX 790, no less than $999 for sure, but why is Nvidia still releasing Kepler cards when people are expecting Maxwell just around the corner? Could this be another marketing strategy to justify higher debut prices?