Kaarme:

Aside from the unlimited greed the crypto boom allowed, there are some technological considerations. It's only so far that giant, monolithic GPU chips can go, even with smaller fabrication technologies (which are also starting to get more complicated and expensive). In fact we have seen it exceedingly clearly and unambiguously on the CPU side, where Intel didn't bother to invest in R&D above the bare minimum and thus the 4-core mainstream maximum continued for many years. Because making bigger chips starts to lessen profits. Intel could still make 8-core ones, but 10-core apparently was already torture for them. Thus they dropped entirely out of the HEDT market, aside from customers who absolutely needed an Intel system for whatever extremely adapted and custom software they happened to be running. On the GPU side there hasn't been anything equivalent to the chiplet revolution so far. Development reached a plateau of a sort. It doesn't help that the bleeding edge memory required by modern gaming cards is also more and more expensive, yet massive amounts of it are needed.

Intel didn't stop investing in newer process nodes. They kept pouring money into their 10nm process, to try and fix it's yields problems. Something they seem to have managed to do, just now. They also kept on investing on newer tech, like GAA and 7nm. Margins for CPUs are still very high. On GPUs, they are not so high, because a GPU also needs vram, power delivery system, ports, etc. But it's still very profitable. And remember that TSMC's 7nm process entered mass production, since 2018. This is now a mature process and this means yields go up. And prices go down.

Horus-Anhur:

Intel didn't stop investing in newer process nodes. They kept pouring money into their 10nm process, to try and fix it's yields problems. Something they seem to have managed to do, just now. They also kept on investing on newer tech, like GAA and 7nm. Margins for CPUs are still very high. On GPUs, they are not so high, because a GPU also needs vram, power delivery system, ports, etc. But it's still very profitable. And remember that TSMC's 7nm process entered mass production, since 2018. This is now a mature process and this means yields go up. And prices go down.

That's the bare minimum I was talking about. The smaller process nodes were directly beneficial for Intel's profits. Intel made astronomical amounts of profit during AMD's deplorable years, and in fact still makes, so you could as well say they didn't invest in the process technology as much as they could and should have. It's not a problem money couldn't have solved. I doubt 7nm prices have been going down with TSMC being overbooked and turning customers away because they have zero free capacity into the foreseeable future. Such a situation doesn't make prices lower, it makes them higher. Well, I'm sure the prices might have gone down for TSMC, allowing them to make record profits, but not for the customers. However, despite all the Apple money, developing first the 5nm and then the 3nm can't be cheap.

Kaarme:

That's the bare minimum I was talking about. The smaller process nodes were directly beneficial for Intel's profits. Intel made astronomical amounts of profit during AMD's deplorable years, and in fact still makes, so you could as well say they didn't invest in the process technology as much as they could and should have. It's not a problem money couldn't have solved. I doubt 7nm prices have been going down with TSMC being overbooked and turning customers away because they have zero free capacity into the foreseeable future. Such a situation doesn't make prices lower, it makes them higher. Well, I'm sure the prices might have gone down for TSMC, allowing them to make record profits, but not for the customers. However, despite all the Apple money, developing first the 5nm and then the 3nm can't be cheap.

Maybe more money could have solved it. But the matter was not of difficulty or increasing prices for production. The problem was that the previous CEO of Intel, was more concerned in stock buy back, to bolster share prices.

Lost interest .

So long as gpu's can make money by mining they will carry this premium, for this reason the LHR cards are the least expensive among the 30 series right now. Check the retailers 3070 cards are available right now for £720, non-lhr still £800+ (cause these can make money AND play your silly tv games.:D

$349?... so $649 it is then.