The discussion around this card is a joke. People seem to rewrite the last couple of months and massive changes happen a week before launch lol
$850 was apparently nearly a fact according to some posters. It has now turned that AMD will release an $850 card that's slower than a $650 card so they are panicking. While in reality we have no idea what prices AMD aimed to hit and what performance level they had in mind as their goal. The best indication for the performance are GPU specs and since we don't have any official GPU specs, it's all just speculation. What I find hilarious is a 100% rumour being passed as a near fact that AMD specifically aimed to create an
$850 card to match or beat the Titan X. We absolutely don't know that. What if AMD aimed to create a $599-649 card that's 90% as fast as the Titan X? In that case they might have succeeded but 980Ti at $649 destroyed their strategy. That's a much more likely possibility of how Fiji XT won't live up to the hype.
Anyway with GM200 overclocking 20%+ on air cooling with little effort, it was obvious since Titan X launched and how well GM200 overclocked that AMD had a major mountain to climb. I guess if AMD's card doesn't live up to expectations, they will be forced to compete on price/performance which ultimately is good for us consumers, but not for AMD.
If Fiji XT beats 980Ti, we win. If Fiji XT doesn't beat 980Ti, we probably get a card priced lower which just gives people more options. In the past NV's flagship was 15-20% faster than AMD's small die chips. If AMD can come in at 5-10% within the Titan X, that's already an improvement from 4870 vs. 280, 6970 vs. 580 or 780Ti vs. 290X (at launch of course).
I just wish AMD released the specs, if not the performance. That alone would tell us a lot.