I don't think this has much, if anything to do with showing up the consoles, I think this is a problem in the PC world itself. Here is why:
Crysis was both the high and low point for PC Gaming. It was the best visuals seen to that time - but it also brought most machines to their knees. The result is that the initial sales were lack-luster. I think this has caused developers to be a little gun shy. They still develop to the lowest common denominator - which isn't the consoles, but the integrated HD4000 graphics that many lower end PC users have.
I was going to mention that one too. That game looked incredible in 2007 but almost nobody could play it above 20fps with DX10 enabled and all the fancy effects on. It was just one of those games that did what you could do with the software available but the hardware could not keep up, I believe I played the game at 25fps at 1024x768.
kepler got screwed so hard, but what's even more pressing is that you need a titan x to run it in ultra in 1080p 60fps. that means this game is 2x more demanding than even gtav. i woulda been ok had the graphics look like the 2013 ingame footage, but the current downgraded graphics doesn't justify. poor showing from a developer that made its name on pc.
Are you sure that there isn't a ton of stuff rendering at long distances and adds to the fps hit? There might be more going on than the immediate vicinity of the player. Games like this are why I'm glad I went with SLI again when I replaced my 670s, I don't need to worry much about not being able to get the performance. As far as GTA goes, there was a ton of things that were totally static until it popped in when you got close. Then things disappear when you turn the camera around.
It's because they are pushing maxwell of course. They discovered a way to force people to upgrade like releasing a new console and dropping support for the old one.
Maybe I missed it there but did they post any benchmarks of everything on? I see HBAO on and off, hairworks on and off, and a test with everything max except they used SSAO and turned off hairworks. Is there a test that had HBAO, Hairworks, and everything else set to the absolute highest?