1 Solution
I totally agree with this, an offical statement would be good to have, I realise the whole "supply/demand" thing is driving prices, but I come from Australia and the MSRP for the reference model was $1048AUD, of which I managed to get an order through on the day they released, my order was then refunded as they didn't have enough stock, so I was put on a priority list for the AIB cards, I just go the pricing for them and asked if I wanted to buy one, lets just say I wasn't impressed with the pricing. Most cards range from $1399-$1599 for air cooled models...
Lets put that into perspective
Reference card pricing = $1048 AUD = $771 USD
The low end pricing of $1399 AUD = $1030 USD
The higher end pricing is $1599 AUD = $1177 USD
We are talking about a $400 USD premium for essentially the same card reference card... I can buy a 5700XT for this change. it also means that the AIB cards price is ABOVE the price of a reference AMD Radeon 6900XT, with only a mere <10% performance improvement and a slightly improved cooler design.
I politely told my supplier, thanks but no thanks and asked them to tell there distributor, and hopefully they makes it way up to top suppliers to know people are annoyed with this. My original Plan was to get a reference card and put on a water block from EK/Bykski and run my system quiet, however not one AIB partner card I can find even has a reference PCB, so its unlikely I can even water cool for quite some time. very disappointing.
For reference I earn plenty of money and can pretty much buy whatever I want for a PC, Its not about the money, its about the principle of supporting these kind of mark up prices, I even managed to get a Ryzen 5900X on launch day, which is still sitting in its box, waiting to be used, however it'll probably sit in its box for quite a bit longer until I can get all my parts, kinda sad really.
Look at how sad it is!!
