The GTX 970 presents both a problem and an opportunity for NVIDIA and their board partners. On one hand its low price of just $329 relative to the performance it is supposed to attain has resulted in a popularly surge of extreme proportions. At face value that's certainly a good thing but actually finding one of these cards in stock is a lesson in futility. Nonetheless, from all the reports we?ve seen, retailers expect regular shipments and with no AMD competitor on the horizon, that could allow NVIDIA to whittle some valuable market share away from their archrival.

If the GTX 980 showed us anything it is that NVIDIA's GM204 core is nearly impossible to compete with in a pure performance per watt battle. However, the GTX 970 finds itself in a hotly contested area, even with its price of $329. This means it needs to eke out a performance win over AMD's competitors before any cost cutting measures are implemented for the current Radeon lineup.