To be honest I've been feeling this for awhile but would like to see what other people think on the topic.
For me, GPU launches are no longer exciting and there are multiple reasons for that.
First is the price of cards at initial launch of a new series. With the 4090 at $1,600 and the 7900 XTX at $1,000 these cards are not really appealing. AMD's option is just barely within what I'd consider but then I look over at my 1080 Ti and consider if this card provides $300 more worth of value now then compared to my 1080 Ti when I first purchased it. The answer is definitely no. It doesn't just extend to the 1080 Ti though, most of my prior GPUs provided more at the time I got them. 7970 Ghz, 4850, 980 Ti. Money is not the issue, just on principle I feel these prices are too much. The 7900 XT is also an initial launch card but with the amount of resources that got cut the $900 price tag is quite clearly designed to upsell people.
Which moves me onto my 2nd gripe: GPUs, their prices, and their launch dates are now all precisely engineered to extract maximum value from customers (not that this didn't happen before but not to the current extent). No longer are we getting good value cards that push your dollar as far as possible. Instead we get GPU's priced to provide just enough performance to justify the cost and of course only released after Nvidia / AMD are sure they'd pushed as many people as possible to buy a more expensive GPU. I remember when the 970 was launched with the 980 when the 900 series was released. GPU tiers are priced to encourage upselling, which has seen the price of many of the lower tier SKUs increase and some higher tier cards be more expensive then they should. The 4080 (both 16 and 12GB variants) and the 7900 XT are perfect examples of this. The price of the 4080 (both variants) is appalling and the 7900 XT should be $799 to $850 at the absolute most. We might as well only be getting flagship parts because that's what these prices are designed to sell.
Last, the lack care for customers. Both these companies tout being pro-gamer and pro-consumer but their actions are almost always in opposition to their words. AMD and Nvidia are competing on architecture but when it comes to pricing they act more like a cartel, carefully crafting prices so as to not ruin GPU 64% margins or maintain the status quo set by the other. When was the last time the GPU market had a good value GPU? The 10000 series, which was a long time ago and that's considering the caveat that the 10000 series too was a price increase. Nvidia attempted to appeal to gamers during the pandemic by creating LHR cards (which it ruined by "accidentally" releasing drivers that got around that) or making dedicated mining cards which were supposed to relieve the pressure on gaming cards. It did not of course, it just gave miners dedicated supply while ensuring those cards cannot be resold to gamers, thus increasing future revenue. Instead of the market catering to customers, it has become a set of mind games to manipulate customers.
That all leads me to question how much customers are willing to sacrifice for the latest and greatest. I ask myself how much graphics power do I really need when it comes at the cost of something greater then just money.
As a side point, IMO this is bad for the PC platform in general. Having accessibly priced computers is absolutely essential to maintain the platform's numbers and highly priced GPUs do not help.
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