Deal? No thanks... There is no thread that can contain the lunacy that is the new GPU pricing structure. The only thing we can hope is that AMD or Intel steps in to the market with an aggressive product at a reasonable price and brings things back down to a reasonable level. I'm not sure when people started being OK with spending $1k+ on a GPU, but the market has adjusted and it's becoming the new norm because people are dumb enough to allow it. Drives me crazy. If the general population could just hold out on these insane prices, they'd be forced to bring it down.
Healthy competition is what is needed, for sure. Going back over the HWC reviews on the NVidia xx80 releases the trend was competition with AMD's flagship cards, and pricing was in line with what AMD had to offer.
Today, NVidia's only competition is their own 10xx line of cards, so it stands to reason that they would not undercut those products. In fact, the reported glut of 10xx silicon returned to board partners to fashion into cards would be a prime reason for high 20xx prices, if only to help sell old stock that is still a better deal than what AMD is offering, and getting better at the cut prices.
It is funny though, there was a lot of rumbling over the past year wondering about when a new product line would be released. Lots of posts and stuff about it being "2 years since Pascal" etc. With AMD striking out with their Vega line, NVidia could have skipped this release all together and just pushed to 7 nm, which is the big rumor for next year. By releasing a product now they get to introduce the new tech, price it where they want to all the while clearing out 10xx cards, and have what could be a better product in the wings ready when AMD finally wheels out their Navi cards...
I went back and reread the x80 releases here at HWC starting with the 480, and it is quite the story of NVidia chasing AMD, catching AMD, then surpassing AMD, all the while keeping prices similar to AMD's prices.