Just to clear things out:
Since this is not the high end chip (being a GK104 part) of nVidia's new family of cards why the hell do they name it (GTX 680) and price it (>$500) as such? And since they do so what does that say about the upcoming supposed flagship (GK110)? Will it ever see the light of day or nVidia seeing that she has no reason to release it (since AMD doesn't give much of a competition) will simply let it be on papers alone?

When "politics" are so *strongly* involved with hardware development you know you're not in a good situation...