Due to crypto mining and scalpers it was much higher.
4080 shouldn't be $1,199, some AIB cards are as high as $1,499
Those conditions haven't changed, yet.
Nvidia could have restructured their entire product matrix. For people to have the argument they are having, then the 3080 has to be equal to the 4080, but being a newer generation, yet, architecturally they aren’t the same. I know, consumers want to take part in this decision-making, but they almost always ignore market conditions as much as reviewers speak to their audience and partly, and within discretion, to their promoters.
Yes, I do believe the 4080 is an expensive GPU, but I am not the target market, yet, everyone believes that they are, and yes, price trickles down as per the product positioning.
AMD also played it well to have two models at the top-end, because the XTX expansion adds a new slot to AMD's product matrix. They didn't have to launch an RX 7800 XT to compete with Nvidia's RTX 4080. It changes the consumers' perception. Is a RX 7800 XT now going to compete with a 4070 Ti, the RX 6800 XT competed with the RTX 3080, no?
AMD didn't keep within the same price levels as they make it out to be. A RX 7950 XT / XTX may be priced considerably higher, but there is a good chance that it will have the memory bandwidth to compete at a higher price point.
It is also known that the leaked AIB RTX 2080 BOM was incredibly high, so I don't even want to know what the RTX 3000/4000 series costs to produce. Market conditions impacts production too, but that isn't the consumers concern.
Now, people better hope that AMD has a good product launch and that Nvidia positively reacts to that launch. We need disruption, and neither AMD nor Nvidia is championing that and Intel will still slouch some generations behind until they can catch up, but will they be disruptive? I don't see better market conditions in the next two years, and it may get worse.
Consumers want to buy an RTX 4080 at $1,199, they have a right to do so. There won't be as many 4080s as 4090s in this cycle so the chances that Nvidia change their pricing strategy during this holiday season are slim unless the 4090s price is lowered, but who knows?
People need to know, some countries still have very high household consumption and consumer expenditure which dwarves us. In times a probable recession can spank us into having a new GPU being the last thing on our minds.
I can't disagree that it is disappointing, but the reality is that we simply don't earn enough, but this is a whole other conversation since it is complex and that people are battling to keep their employment.