We had massive increase in transistor density, on almost every generation of GPUs. That still doesn't justify doubling the price for mid range cards. And wages didn't just get a double in cost for companies in these last few years. You are just grabbing for straws, trying to justify something that has no reason to be.

Horus-Anhur:

We had massive increase in transistor density, on almost every generation of GPUs. That still doesn't justify doubling the price for mid range cards. And wages didn't just get a double in cost for companies in these last few years. You are just grabbing for straws, trying to justify something that has no reason to be.

Lol I don't understand how you can look at a graph showing every node for years decreasing the cost massively, then at about 2016-2017 slowly stagnating, then more recently slowly increasing and sit here and write this comment. This isn't particularly challenging to grasp. It costs an exponential amount more money to build a chip on a modern node than it did on prior nodes. In the past node shrinks nearly halved the cost of manufacturing per transistor - so they were able to keep prices relatively similar as everything else went up.. but the last one or two nodes did the opposite and actually increased costs and thus you get $1200 Tis, $400 midrange GPUs, etc. This isn't grabbing at straws, it's just basic comprehension - my points about inflation, wages, etc are all just additive to the main point and explains why you can see increases.

Denial:

Lol I don't understand how you can look at a graph showing every node for years decreasing the cost massively, then at about 2016-2017 slowly stagnating, then more recently slowly increasing and sit here and write this comment. This isn't particularly challenging to grasp. It costs an exponential amount more money to build a chip on a modern node than it did on prior nodes. In the past node shrinks nearly halved the cost of manufacturing per transistor - so they were able to keep prices relatively similar as everything else went up.. but the last one or two nodes did the opposite and actually increased costs and thus you get $1200 Tis, $400 midrange GPUs, etc. This isn't grabbing at straws, it's just basic comprehension - my points about inflation, wages, etc are all just additive to the main point and explains why you can see increases.

The cost of the 6600XT chip, at 7nm, is of about 48 US$. Tell me how this justifies a 400 US4 card. Yes, cost for 7nm is higher than previous. But it's only one part of what is the GPU. The 5700XT had a bigger die than the 6600XT, and used the 7nm process when it was less mature. And it had a bigger cooler, more complex pcb and power delivery. And it cost 400 US$, two years ago. Even the RTX 3060, which has a bigger die, has an MSRP of 330 US$. And it has 12Gb of GDDR6, bigger cooler, bigger pcb, more advanced power delivery system, RTX dedicated units and Tensor units.

Doesn't matter, manufacturers will charge whatever suits their sales plan. It's one of those things one cannot build oneself.

Denial:

Lol I don't understand how you can look at a graph showing every node for years decreasing the cost massively, then at about 2016-2017 slowly stagnating, then more recently slowly increasing and sit here and write this comment. This isn't particularly challenging to grasp. It costs an exponential amount more money to build a chip on a modern node than it did on prior nodes. In the past node shrinks nearly halved the cost of manufacturing per transistor - so they were able to keep prices relatively similar as everything else went up.. but the last one or two nodes did the opposite and actually increased costs and thus you get $1200 Tis, $400 midrange GPUs, etc. This isn't grabbing at straws, it's just basic comprehension - my points about inflation, wages, etc are all just additive to the main point and explains why you can see increases.

I do not disagree with most of your statement but the price increases are way too much even with everything considered here. How did a gtx 1080 which was the #2 gaming card (excluding titans) go from 550-600$cad to now over 1000$cad for a 3080 if going by msrp. Its well over 2k with mining but we'll leave that out.

I don't see how prices could drop any time soon. Not only is the demand for new hardware the highest its been in a decade, but there are more industries demanding the latest fabrication nodes to the point where I'm sure we're years behind supply keeping up. Remember too that the R&D of smaller nodes, and, the purity of the silicon gets substantially more expensive for every additional nm that gets cut off. I do feel these GPUs are too expensive for what they are but there isn't really a point in lowering the MSRP, because you just simply won't be paying that if they do.

I have several cartons of PC-related magazines my Dad and older brother collected dating back to the mid-nineties. PC World, PC Magazine, Maximum PC, Boot, and others. (Please don't ask me why... I have no answer. It's a guy-thing, I think.) Anyway, after looking through a few of them, I can tell you that, here in the U.S., back in 2000, the Geforce 2 Ultra was selling for $500 as listed by retailers in these magazines. And, I can only assume people purchased it at that price. All 64Mb of it. My intention here isn't to throw stones at Nvidia, but $500 for a Geforce 2 Ultra in 2000, sure makes the GTX 1060 for $300 or so, 16 years later, seem pretty generous. And, the 8Gb RX480 at $249 (?) look like an absolute steal. Looking back, the prices on these two seem like outliers now. Actually, I think a lot of us thought that one or both of these cards seemed like great deals, even back in 2016. The "bang-for-the-buck" they provided, coupled with the "long legs" they have demonstrated in terms of performance over the last five years may have set expectations among PC gamers that AMD or Nvidia might find difficult to duplicate anytime soon.

I think it would have been pretty cool to have purchased the video card I was about to that was finally under 300 then miners appeared again and made that video card $800, as of today the price has dropped to $649 and is now sold out. Video card prices are still messed up... I shall continue waiting.

Read somewhere that only the RX 6600 XT would be launch while there's no firm date on the RX 6600 non-XT. Much like the RX 6700 XT was launched with no sign of the RX 6700 non-XT launch date.

Celcius:

I have several cartons of PC-related magazines my Dad and older brother collected dating back to the mid-nineties. PC World, PC Magazine, Maximum PC, Boot, and others. (Please don't ask me why... I have no answer. It's a guy-thing, I think.) Anyway, after looking through a few of them, I can tell you that, here in the U.S., back in 2000, the Geforce 2 Ultra was selling for $500 as listed by retailers in these magazines. And, I can only assume people purchased it at that price. All 64Mb of it. My intention here isn't to throw stones at Nvidia, but $500 for a Geforce 2 Ultra in 2000, sure makes the GTX 1060 for $300 or so, 16 years later, seem pretty generous. And, the 8Gb RX480 at $249 (?) look like an absolute steal. Looking back, the prices on these two seem like outliers now. Actually, I think a lot of us thought that one or both of these cards seemed like great deals, even back in 2016. The "bang-for-the-buck" they provided, coupled with the "long legs" they have demonstrated in terms of performance over the last five years may have set expectations among PC gamers that AMD or Nvidia might find difficult to duplicate anytime soon.

Highend cards were pretty expensive always 😀 yes, the modern cards sure made for some good value, especially now with various techs like DLSS or FSR making it possible for them to last way beyond what they normally would. Gotta love it. Even if we might wish we had a 3080 Ti or whatever, then realistically we don't need one. Most of us do not run 4k displays any way.

Well.. it finally happened, the cheapest AMD video card to purchase on PC Case Gear starts at $1049, there is no lower priced AMD video card available, like at all, the RX 580 I have been watching which should be under $300 but sat at $649 was just removed from sale.... awesome. I'm so disgusted at what miners have done to video cards.... this is just ridiculous. https://i.imgur.com/hqz7Fst.jpg