I have to say that there's a lot to like about the new cards. Nvidea releasing something with good performance, that doesn't make my wallet bleed is nice. I'm not sure how I feel about the 980, but the 970 is pretty amazing.
This said, I'm not willing to give up on the 7970 yet. It's substantially whipped by the 970, but I'm not yet seeing the ends of my current card. Whenever the 970 hits somewhere near the $250 price point I'll be jumping on the boat.
I think that'll be a really long wait :-/
I don't disagree. The thing is, I snagged an ASUS Direct copper II 7970 for less than $200. I managed doing so right before the mining boom, and I've been immensely happy with having that level of performance.
The 970 is better, but incrementally so. I'd be willing to jump to Nvidea at the 970 level if the incremental price of an upgrade is reasonable for me, which is around the $250 price range. If launch prices are $330, and AMD gets off their laurels, the 970 could be at the $270 mark after a couple of price drops. Wait for a sale, and that $250 mark isn't too unreasonable.
This said, it'll likely be 7-9 months before we hit that point. By that point the power consumption of the 7970 and diminished relative performance should be reason enough to upgrade.