I have always thought/understood that the high end cards did not make much profit directly for companies (relatively speaking). Most people cannot or will not fork out that much for a card. However, the company who can say "I have the fastest hardware" will then sell the most mid-range cards and that is where the cash is. So often times these releases are as much for marketing as to sell product being announced. Of course that is all at an AMD vs. Nvidia level for the most part.

With how fast people are buying out cards, these companies can charge whatever for them and make a huge profit.

Some are like me, I simply cannot find an RX 6800 XT, and IF I do, the price isn't that far off an RX 6900 XT.....and most of the time, the RX 6800 XT simply fly off the shelves. So, if I play the waiting game, I'd probably have to wait a pretty long time for the 6800 XT, so I'd said 'Heck!' and ponied up for an RX 6900 XT instead.

Product not available.

was interested in an all AMD build - X570 motherboard blinks into existence once every 2 weeks for like 2hrs and then it goes into the EOL category (hidden from search tool but still there if you have the shortcut) - 5900x 5950x only available from scalpers (included in that group are official retailers selling it for +50%) - never seen one 6800 XT or 6900 XT available in swiss shops probably because they have hundreds or thousands of backorders I buy what's in stock it ended up being a....3090...for the cost of a bit less than the entire amd build :/ Hopefully I'm wrong but I don't see things getting better anytime soon so I took the opportunity to buy one at the "low" price of 1762€ or....2140$ (USD is way too low this is good for no one)

kakiharaFRS:

was interested in an all AMD build - X570 motherboard blinks into existence once every 2 weeks for like 2hrs and then it goes into the EOL category (hidden from search tool but still there if you have the shortcut) - 5900x 5950x only available from scalpers (included in that group are official retailers selling it for +50%) - never seen one 6800 XT or 6900 XT available in swiss shops probably because they have hundreds or thousands of backorders I buy what's in stock it ended up being a....3090...for the cost of a bit less than the entire amd build :/ Hopefully I'm wrong but I don't see things getting better anytime soon so I took the opportunity to buy one at the "low" price of 1762€ or....2140$ (USD is way too low this is good for no one)

I have been waiting for months for an AMD 5900x for my new AMD build but like you mention you cannot buy anything AMD at this point unless you want to pay scalpers (which I am not). I might go Intel and Nvidia just because it is somewhat easier (I think) to get that equipment.

DarkQuark:

I have always thought/understood that the high end cards did not make much profit directly for companies (relatively speaking). Most people cannot or will not fork out that much for a card. However, the company who can say "I have the fastest hardware" will then sell the most mid-range cards and that is where the cash is. So often times these releases are as much for marketing as to sell product being announced. Of course that is all at an AMD vs. Nvidia level for the most part.

They make a lot per card but in volume you are right its usually not a lot in total revenue. Every 6900 XT AMD sales they make more money per card than the 6800 I mention that because we are talking the same dies that are binned. This is especially true these days since both AMD and Nvidia have gaming GPU's and compute GPU's. So even if you take the best chips to make the 6900 XT you are not cannibalizing from the higher cost compute GPU's since the GPU dies are different.

JamesSneed:

They make a lot per card but in volume you are right its usually not a lot in total revenue. Every 6900 XT AMD sales they make more money per card than the 6800 I mention that because we are talking the same dies that are binned. This is especially true these days since both AMD and Nvidia have gaming GPU's and compute GPU's. So even if you take the best chips to make the 6900 XT you are not cannibalizing from the higher cost compute GPU's since the GPU dies are different.

from someone working in that industry, I probably have said that already on guru3d - a fab prioritizes high volume products that allow machines to run 24/24 because of the constant running cost of a factory (machines are almost never down) - better "quality" products maybe I should say "complex" products usually takes longer to make and test afterwards, if yields are low you're again wasting machine time so it better be worth it - since TSMC seems to be doing most of everything nowadays brands aren't the ones deciding what's available..it's TSMC which has it's own internal strategy and priorities completely unknown to the general public

Why the hell did the Gpu prices rise so much ?