redteamgo
what is stirring my pot is that the product life cycle cannot be an effective 3-6 months if they want $2k a pop.  for $2k, it needs to be minimum 12-18 months for a flagship card.  like others said, just forget it.

Hoggle
I personally see ray tracing as the future and with crypto in a tailspin that is currently about 1/3 of what it was 6 months ago for Ethereum. It will be interesting to see what the next generation of cards brings for prices and performance. I personally view my computer as a needed item for more than gaming while a console is just for gaming so in a lot of ways it's better for me to throw a GPU into the computer I use for other tasks than to buy a console. I can tell you none of the current consoles make a game look as good as it does on a 3080 FTW3 Ultra.

Slimmer
I had no problem w/ the RT tax after trying it out with a semi cheap 1660ti and the game "Control". 
 
After that I was sold and still am....more RT please , it's just like the RGB you can always turn it off. 
  
 

Slimmer
I had no problem w/ the RT tax after trying it out with a semi cheap 1660ti and the game "Control". 
 
After that I was sold and still am....more RT please , it's just like the RGB you can always turn it off. 
  
 

ObscureEmpyre

Hoggle
I personally see ray tracing as the future and with crypto in a tailspin that is currently about 1/3 of what it was 6 months ago for Ethereum. It will be interesting to see what the next generation of cards brings for prices and performance. I personally view my computer as a needed item for more than gaming while a console is just for gaming so in a lot of ways it's better for me to throw a GPU into the computer I use for other tasks than to buy a console. I can tell you none of the current consoles make a game look as good as it does on a 3080 FTW3 Ultra.

I think raytracing is here to stay. I just hope they improve upon it so as to not make everything a wet, shiny mess. That seems to be the biggest implementation of it. As far as crypto mining goes, I sure hope there isn’t a huge demand for GPUs going forward to support it. Ingenuity and innovation are cool, but when people are repurposing something at the expense of the target audience it definitely leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

Hoggle
I was thinking of one thing that was pointed out about consoles being "cheaper" one thing we saw this generation is console games start to show up at a price of $69.99 for new titles. So far only title to come out at that price on PC was Final Fantasy VII remake on the epic game store with other games being normally $59.99 new on PC. The other great thing about PC is I can go to Steam, Epic games store or a dozen other sources for games but with a console it's Microsoft or Sony or trying to find a physical copy. It's far more limiting to try to find a sale on a console game then it is on PC. One other thing is very few PC games I own have ever became unplayable because of updates. I can load up a 30 year old PC game and play it but with consoles if I wanted to do that they would want me to buy a new copy of the game that works on the current generation consoles.
 

rjohnson11

bobmitch
Getting back to the original post about cost.  My local Microcenter has risen prices on most 3xxx series cards.  The pricing dropped for a month or so, but now prices are headed back up.  Example...the 12GB 3080 FTW 3 had dropped to a low of $1049 at one point...now it's $1299.00  Microcenter taking advantage of the situation, while they sit on a ton of stock.  Frankly...let the stock sit there.  I don't think anyone here likes being taken advantage of.  Also...Asus parts prices have come down...but they were even more ridiculous to begin with.  Ho Hum...

So at those prices go to the EVGA website and get an RTX 3080ti or an RTX 3080 hybrid instead. 

Donradeon
I think partly the increase in pricing is due to range being expanded. A 10gb 3080 may have normally been the "top tier" card in a series, but now there's four cards above that. Appropriately, one will pay exponentially more for those cards.
 
Consoles are cheaper, but some only have space for one device or simply don't enjoy the gaming experience on a console. I can play racing games on both a PC or an xbox, but a FPS or RTS either won't play the same or doesn't exist on the xbox. 

Donradeon
I think partly the increase in pricing is due to range being expanded. A 10gb 3080 may have normally been the "top tier" card in a series, but now there's four cards above that. Appropriately, one will pay exponentially more for those cards.