and with that price and the 980 dropping in price the 980 would be a better option
Yup exactly. Remember - Pascal is simply Maxwell on steroids. Clock for clock there is barely any difference and that's mainly down to the GDDR5X on the 1080.
Right now you can pick up a 970 for about £220? something like that. The RX 480 is about to launch and all it really has is more VRAM and it will probably be gouged up to £220 at least.
Thing is? the 970 overclocks very well. The 480 doesn't, at all.
Then there's the higher end of the market. A few days back OCUK were selling the 980ti Strix for £359. They were also selling the 1070 Strix for £469.
And overclocked both cards have about a fag paper between them in performance.
None of these new cards make any sense at all. Not at the prices they're at.
Saying that though this usually happens. I bought a 470 just as the 570 and 580 launched for £170, down from £350. I put on a £25 cooler and overclocked it and it performed really well. Easily edging out a stock 480 and coming very close to a stock 570.
My next card up was a 6970 Lightning for £230. I needed the extra VRAM..
So yeah, usually when a new card launches they deliberately make the older ones far more tempting first. Usually so tempting that it simply isn't worth buying the newer card.