I dont really understand how or why people are crying about GPUs over $600 they have been like that for years. and if people doubt me I will show you the receipt for my 290X and you can just google news stories about the titan launch and the 980 or all the other GTX X80s for that matter. WTF do people want? This isnt news or shocking the RADEON 9800 PRO back in like 2005 was $300+ at launch. and I hope you have the cognitive ability to notice the technological differences now. and back then everyone said the same thing WTF why isnt this card $150?! QQ rage1one1
I generally think that most of the griping comes from people who haven't been buying graphics (or hardware in general) very long. Back in the day, $350-400 was the going rate for cutting edge 3D graphics with ~ 2MB of RAM for those of us that used to stump up the cash for ATI's 3D Rage. When the 32MB cards first arrived in 2000, the same thing applied again ( Radeon 7200 64MB, GeForce2 GTS etc.), the same with the 128MB cards (ATI AIW 8500DV, GeForce3 Ti) which started moving into the $500 price bracket. As you say, the 9800 Pro was $300+ (actually closer to $400-450 for many, as was the preceding 9700 Pro and the FX 5900U/5950U, and the following 9800 XT), and the trend continued though the X800 PRO/XT, GeForce 6800U and climbed to $500 with the XT PE and Ultra Extreme - and pretty much stayed there for anyone buying a X1800XT or 7800GTX....then you could tack on an additional $100-150 when the first 512MB cards (7800GTX 512M, and X1900 XTX) arrived.
Some people seem to think that the pricing structure as somehow escalated when the fact is the consumer was somewhat spoiled for a brief number of generations thanks to the R600 debacle that led to AMD targeting the value for money segment with the HD 3870/4870/5870/6970...which accounts for less than three years of product releases of the twenty years consumer 3D graphics have been generally available.
If you buy stuff based on marketing, then you're dumb. Good consumer (for companies), but dumb. I see absolutely no need for a 4K monitor.
Well, if your needs and desires dictated the fortunes of the entire AMD company I could see the relevance, but the company needs to appeal to a wider market than just yourself. You see the market from a personal standpoint, I tend to look at it from the entire customer base.
For the record, I don't see a need for 4K either - especially with OS font issues, lack of native 4K video content, and the nascent state of the 4K monitor market (why bother jumping on the train early when the next wave of panels - and cards- should feature DP1.3 and a wider range of offerings in the 10-bit/IPS class).
