It would be good for us consumers if Kepler did smack down the 7970 and it should. I don't care less either way tho as my rig is a toy that I just tinker with anyways. Not into gaming anymore so I could care less who has the latest/greatest/fastest gpu on the market.
On another note what would you expect Nvidia to say. Damn that 7970 is gonna be hard to beat? Were in trouble now? Holly S**t that things fast? You get the point.
If Kepler does smack down the 7970 then it's just a matter of how the prices fall in line. Does 7970 drop down? Does the Kepler competition cost more? Does AMD go full ninja price war?
My feeling on the price subject is both AMD and Nvidia should do something like crossfire/sli bundle on video cards. First one at full retail and the second one at something like a cost plus ??% available in a bundle package only.
On a second note GCN is a total new architecture for AMD. The odds of them getting it right the first time are slim to none. But it's a base for most likely many great cards to come. Looking at he progression from 38xx > 48xx >58xx > series it seems like unless the GCN architecture was close to being tapped the first time it'll have alot of growth potential in the future.