Well it sucks but I guess we will have to live with it. It is a shame of nVidia to release a card 4% off the performance of its current flagship yet 40% off the price tag. Fans will probably hesitate buying the next-gen flagship, or switch to the AMD camp in worst case scenario.
 
Think optimistically though, and the Titan X will last and last long, at least with the 12GB VRAM it has. I upgraded from my 3-Way SLI GTX 570 HD SC only because the VRAM on these cards is no longer capable of dealing with the textures and AAs of current games. Had I opted for the GTX 580 3GB (if I remember right), even if it were in 2-Way SLI configuration, I would probably have stayed where I was for another year or so.
 
Pay the premium, and just enjoy the premium.

Vlada011
 
 
It's not same, If I don't save enough for TITAN X I will miss than whole Maxwell architecture and wait TITAN X successor.
I will not pay go on "gimpy" cards... I didn't chose them while I was AMD buyer and I will not know with NVIDIA.
I felt bad somehow to someone sabotage me performance only because I have no 1200e to pay.  
 
Do you know why? Because I think they don't need to launch weaker card after several months...
People who payed TITAN X play on him few months before and now NVIDIA should offer same performance and same CUDA cores only less video memory.
That would be fair for 700-800e... But that's not small price, they not ask 300-400-500e, they ask huge money cut memory on half but still want just like that to cripple and CUDA.
That's their caprice, like memory with GTX970, no real explanation but let's give them less.
I will try to save for TITAN X but I can't say for sure... Now all money I will save for card, because 5820K I have, DDR4 I have and all money for X99 motherboard I have with me.
 

I predict this will be the new norm for nVidia. Release a fully enabled chip for a premium price and a cut down version shortly after, which most people will be okay with. Even as I await delivery of the 980Ti next week, I still have an itch to buy a Titan X. And scratch my plan of going 1440p IPS 120hz in favor of 4K. And add the inevitable 2nd Titan X thereafter because that's the only solution that can effectively run a 4K setup at a consistent 60fps in most games. 

Lephron is spot on here & I'll add 1 more thing here that I have noticed no one here even come close to admitting & that is AMD just may have indeed truly come up w/ the TitanX killer card on a performance basis...potentially not just on price curve alone.
 
And from Nvidia's current action of releasing their own version of a cut-down & cheaper TitanX (GTX 980Ti) AHEAD of AMD's initial release of Fiji\Fury XT w/ known new HBM tech, regardless of the 4Gb capacity limit on HBM at initial release, coupled w/ Nvidia leaking the adoption of HBM2 tech w/ their new Pascal GPU upcoming in 2016 is a very telling insight into Nvidia that they believe that AMD has caught them w/ their pants down just as Nvidia has done to AMD in times past so Nvidia is employing a time-tested marketing ploy of releasing a cut-down version of their flagship card to try to counter the release of the competition's potentially better performing & potentially more cost-effective flagship product to potentially reduce the amount of market share loss expected if they did nothing as they obviously think that the market share loss within it's loyal customers from undercutting those who bought their flagship product ahead of this ploy would be far less than what could occur if the competition's (AMD) new flagship product outperformed their (Nvidia) flagship on both a performance & cost wise basis.
The new HBM tech that AMD is using gives them the same advantages of reducing the amount of power needed that can be used to boost GPU performance within the same TDP rating envelope along w/ the massively increased onboard GPU\mem bandwidth along w/ any kind of power savings from Fiji\Fury GPU architecture to further take advantage of this extra power AND the advantage of reducing the SIZE of the vid card's real estate relative to current sizing which WILL reduce the cost of manufacture which could very well make the new AMD card's price cheaper than TitanX but perform on par or better w/ it (as the leaked performance graphs already "indicate").......that is a TITAN killing scenario whether you like it or not. If this is so then the ONLY advantage the TitanX will have is the mem CAPACITY advantage when rendering HI-RES (greater than 1080P) at HIGH\ULTRA settings but if a consumer is wise enough to pair this AMD vid card w/ a new NVMe-equipped PCI-E SSD so that the vastly superior read,write & access time speed advantage of the PCI-E SSD over the vastly faster PCI-E lanes vs SATAIII can make up for the new AMD card w/ a MUCH faster mem swap file over the current SATAIII-based SSD's & especially the old & slower HDD's will at that time completely slay the TitanX.......but that is only a pipe dream for those who cannot afford the new tech that is currently out here & available NOW...................
 
The big mistake that I see being made in here is the complacent & biased thinking that AMD can't change & improve.........they have a new CEO in charge now (Lisa Lieu) & from all the info that I have been reading it looks like AMD is trying to return\revive to their old ATI past heritage when ATI ruled the graphics markets some years back over Nvidia....thus the return of the old ATI Fury name on some of their new line of products.......& this complacency & bias is EXACTLY what Nvidia is counting on to offset AMD sales by offering the 980Ti ahead of AMD's new card release & I have to agree that it is WORKING............this is no different than what AMD has done in the past to offset Nvidia's releases when Nvidia released a better performing but not necessarily more cost-effective product than AMD to reduce the amount of market share losses within AMD's loyal customers by cutting prices on their products & hoping to pull some of Nvidia's loyal customers away due to Nvidia's ridiculously high prices for this "better" tech....that has also worked for AMD as well. You all have just witnessed an example of this occurring in this thread........that is, if you can see the forest in spite of all the trees...................
 
All this is just Marketing 101 being employed..........................................
Which side of all this that you end up being on is entirely up to the CONSUMER.....which is your choice to make & is a reality of a free market society.
 
I believe that this time AMD is really coming back & swinging a BIG stick when they do......which will be good for ALL us consumers as these ridiculous prices should start coming down some & becoming more relevant for AMD & Nvidia products due to true & full competition between both AMD & Nvidia.
 
Good times are just ahead..................
 
You may now flame my post away if you desire & believe that it is in your best interest to do so................
 
 <salute>

Good points flyhii. Hence why I'll keep my 980 Ti sealed until concrete evidence comes in on Fiji performance.

Beasthunt
I agree but 4gb ram is 4gb ram and it's just not enough.

I think the R9 390x that is supposed to be on par with the 980 will be the sweet spot. 8gb vram and you can xfire them, kill a 980ti/Titan and 4k your heart out.

That has kept me from pulling the plug on the 980ti several times. That and the custom cooled non reference cards. That G1.....*drool*

Yeah, it's a shame Nvidia doesn't green light a custom 8GB 980 at $550 and drop the 4GB 980 to $450.  After my experience with the 980Ti, I really feel 8GB will be the sweet spot for this generation until Pascal/Arctic Islands on 14/16nm.  4GB definitely will not be enough beyond 1080p gaming, 6GB is enough for single-GPU since you will have to turn some stuff down at 1440p and higher, 8GB or more for multi-GPU since you can crank up the eye candy.

Assuming DX12 merges SLI vram successfully everybody is going to be swimming in memory and the per-card amount will simply not be an issue for better PC builds. 

Best possible configuration for long time, until NVIDIA optimize Pascal high end chip for gamers.
At least 20-24 months will need for second generation to be launched because HBM II will be available probably at the end of 2016.
 
Intel i7-5960X 4.0 GHz
EVGA GTX TITAN X SC SLI 1150MHz OC
Dominator Platinum 4x8GB 2666MHz C15
Samsung SM951 NVMe M.2 256 GB
CORSAIR Neutron XT 480 GB x2
WD VelociRaptor SATA III 1TB x2
EVGA SuperNOVA 1200 P2 
 
Off course always could be better and faster but this one nice configuration in my taste.
For someone who have less money could choose one same graphic card, 6 core CPU not 8, 16GB not 32GB memory, 1 HDD, 1 SSD...
 
 
 

Vlada011
WD VelociRaptor SATA III 1TB x2

That sounds loud! Or maybe it's just the older ones that were loud. I have an older one in a second system and it's painful to listen to it crunch away :P.

mdzcpa

pyxel
Assuming DX12 merges SLI vram successfully everybody is going to be swimming in memory and the per-card amount will simply not be an issue for better PC builds. 

That is a HUGE assumption. I would never spend big money on a couple of high end cards now hoping VRAM stacking comes along to save me.  Not only are you hoping that stacking actually works in DX12 as planned, and that the outdated interconnects can allow for fast enough memory pool sharing, but then you are also hoping that developers code it into their games right off the bat.  No way.  If you plan on 4k with multi GPU, and you have the budget, you need the cards with all cores functioning and the most VRAM.

Fully agree, people are going to be really disappointed if they start putting faith in VRAM pooling adequately addressing multi-GPU VRAM issues.  Sooner this misconception dies, the better.

Titan X is currently the fastest GPU on the planet. Might not be by much but we've had a 3 month head start to enjoy GM200 + you won't have to worry about VRAM for a long while. If you haven't been around long, this happens every year now since the original Titan was released. Besides, you'll be dumping these TX's as soon as Pascal Titan is released.
 
BTW, I paid $880 for each of my TX's so the sting isn't that bad.

Double Post

I like when someone refuse to give customers something nice and when that revenge to them. Than I'm happiest on the world.
That will be when AMD launch new card and when customers start to pay R9-390X 8GB CF instead GTX980 4GB SLI.
I will gladly to explain them for 4GB trap. Because I was there year before that.
GTX980Ti go in trap too but never mind. 
I see now how other people try to convince them that 4GB is enough for next two year. Special if someone wont to buy new ASUS monitor 34" IPS with Curved screen with G-Sync almost 4K, or new 4K monitors. For them will be special enough GTX980 4GB SLI.
NVIDIA should be ignored until drop price of TITAN X on 800e and GTX980 TI on 600e. 
Because that's only their usefull hardware for longer period but GTX980Ti can't be option for someone who plan to enable 4K in next period.
That mean every SLI option in Europe will cost 2400e or 1500e. Buut 1500E option is very danger because limitation is close.
Because if you look TITAN X that's excellent card, I would like to have him, but he is not god miracle and something 60-70% stronger than GTX980.
R9-290X = 10% weaker than GTX780Ti
GTX780Ti - 10% weaker than GTX980
 
If they improve little performance only and optimize card with driver they will have card 10% weaker than GTX980 under 400$.
Some rumors say even 350-400$ but card will have 8GB. Two of them will deal easy with TITAN X, you don't need CF bridge, nothing, only connect, CF scaling is good. That's not nicest situation but no other option. High fps is visible, numbers are there. We can like that or not but we can pay below 800 or 1200.
It's weird how NVIDIA and their greed politic from customer who pay NVIDIA easy make worse option than AMD.
Example is GTX780/GTX780Ti. Who could imagine that one Hawaii will be better option. 
 

Vlada011
Now when ASUS launch Matrixs from Hawaii, Poseidon. You only connect two tubes, price 60-70e more than reference model. 
Easy. Two R9-390X Poseidon 8GB for same price as GTX980Ti.

Yeah, the R9 390x is going to shake things up. I'm about to put my second Strix 970 in my machine, but as soon as solid benchmarks come out and if the R9 390x is what most think it will be, then it will kill the 980. As powerful but priced at $349.

My body is ready for June 16.

While dual r9-390x sounds great, I still wouldn't trust that over a dual 980Ti or Titan X setup. Unless things have changed, my understanding is CrossFire is not yet compatible with FreeSync, and AMD has stated that there is no anticipated time frame for support. This is total fail if still true, typical AMD fashion.
 
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9209/amd-crossfire-freesync-update-delayed
 

Vlada011
AMD need more performance, NVIDIA more video memory.
NVIDIA could made very hard situation for AMD with 8GB cards under 500$.
But they decide to offer only 4GB because they plan to launch GTX980Ti with 6GB.
NVIDIA had chance to go far but they decide to play with memory and lot of their customers will stay disappointed in next 1-2 years.
If someone pay last 500-550$ for graphic card he expect to use that hardware at least 24 months and how he can feel if for 6 months he need to drop texture on mid. Than NVIDIA go deeper and deeper and make more and more cards with very limited quantity of memory.
Instead to launch everything together GTX980 4GB mid range under 500, GM200 premium two models. Both full. One 6GB for people who plan less than 4K in next 2 years, one model with 12GB for people who plan 4K and SLI... One card 700$ other 900$.
Now they make situation so bad that they could only to hurry to launch Pascal. 
If ASUS launch Poseidon R9-390X 8GB he will drop heat on 50C instantly and biggest problem of Hawaii will gone.
Immediately Hawaii become better and from full GK110 and from full GM204.
Except for someone who play on 1920x1080 and have 600W PSU and don't want to change that. How that happen to Hawaii become better choice than two excellent NVIDIA chips stronger than Hawaii? NVIDIA made that to provide space for premium cards.
R9-390X 8GB will drop exactly in segment of people who bought GTX970, that's biggest part of gaming community.
They can't afford mistakes and manipulation and excuses and they not forgive.
Europe is completely different that USA. It's not only East Europe in bad financial situation.
Even people on west in most cased don't want or don't have to pay over 500$ for graphic cards.
Their comments on NVIDIA prices are very bad.
 

Many people will not care about the 4gb card. We the enthusiasts are a minority and most people game at 1080p single monitor. I do predict that AMD will soon release an 8gb variant of the Fury X, far sooner than 12 months from now. How could they not, considering the competition and also Pascal. I'm stunned that their enthusiast cards will launch with only 4gb.