I wish people would stop trying to find excuses for these corporations. Not long ago we got 970s and 1070s at decent prices that competed with the previous Ti card. AMD was always treasured for ONE thing the most:
- consumer friendly (supposedly)
- not as greedy as Nvidia/Intel
- price disruption
Few want to buy AMD at the very top end unless it is actually BETTER performance for a lower price, considering the fewer features and underdog status.
And basically 699 is top mainstream, ignore the 1200 dreams of Titan-equivalent prices from Nvidia. People hope for something akin to how the 4850 was back in the day, forcing Nvidia to drop prices and making them pay for their greed.
But just like in the past, when AMD had a good performing Athlon, they positioned it to 1000USD immediately, showing everyone what they should have always known:
- AMD is just as greedy as Nvidia
- neither of the big 3 is consumer friendly
And since these corporations don't look out for US, the consumer, we shouldn't EVER say their pricing schemes are OK and just fine, and try to find justifications, like "16GB HBM2" and "still Vega". For the consumer, these things don't matter, price is what matters first, and consumers should look for THEIR interest, NOT the corporation's.
TL;DR: people should each of the big 3 when they come with greedy disappointing prices, and also reward them for products such as the GTX970 (yes, it worked fine even with the fake 0.5VRAM, even on full 4GB VRAM used), HD4850 or even the 8700K, which in my country sold for the same price as the 7700K and BELOW the 1700x and 1800x.