Kepler GK110 (GTX 780) = 561mm2 launched in May 2013
Hawaii (R9 290X) = 438mm2 launched in October 2013
Hawai today is faster (438mm2 vs 561mm2)
Maxwell GM204 (GTX 980) = 398mm2 launched September 2014
Hawaii (390X) and Maswell GM204 (GTX 980) are almost equals today
Hawaii was an exceptional design back in 2013, it launched 5 months after big Kepler with a way smaller die and today is even faster than GTX 780Ti (Launched November 2013) especially in DX-12/Vulkan games.
GM204 Maxwell GTX 980 came almost one year after Hawaii, its not unheard of a new design to outperform an 11 months old design.
I feel my problem with these kind of posts is they always seem to focus on now, when those chips being discussed are no longer relative.
When it mattered, ie AMD was selling 7970's for $550 and prone to make good return per each sold, this place admonished AMD for raising the MSRP. It's like AMD committed some unconscionable wrong to try to make money. Fast forward to Nano and this place bent overward backwards to justify the price. I just don't get it anymore but I think by then it was more a "everyone is a stock holder/miner" COI I personally think people adhere to now.
Hawaii can be 100x faster than Kepler/Maxwell today, it doesn't matter when today's product stack don't favor AMD outside of select few titles. And in 2019 when Polaris 10 is destroying GP106 in everything it won't matter either if GV104 is destroying whatever AMD has on the platter.
Is AMD awesome? They create some awesome tech, but by god you'd figure a company leading the industry (sometimes by the hand) can make some money. And before anyone goes "derp are you a consumer or stock holder" I've always been a consumer, but I'm now buying NV because AMD has nothing to offer me. And by the time they do I have zero doubt NV will be ready to respond. Same with DX12. AMD can be as fast as they want in the 5-6 DX12 titles, when we're looking at 20-30 DX titles, something tells me NV will be more than ready to laugh again.
But, at least Tahiti is now faster than Kepler. That's all that matters.
EDIT: oops confused some GPU names, fixed em all - I hope.