GPUs are going to be weird, underconfigured and overpriced until there is real competition.
Whether or not there is real competition depends entirely on whether Intels Arc line of GPUs stays in the market.
AMD strangely has decided not to compete. Its newest GPU the 7900 XTX is an extremely powerful card, close to the top of the line Nvidia RTX 4090 in raster performance.
If AMD had introduced it with an aggressively low price then then they could have wedged Nvidia, which is determinbed to exploit it's market dominance by squeezing the maximum money out of buyers.
Instead, AMD has decided to simply follow Nvidia in squeezing for maximum prices, with AM prices slightly behind Nvidia.
It's a strange decision from AMD who is well behind in market and apparently seems disinterested in increasing that market share by competing aggressively.
So a third player is needed - Intel - it's alot harder for three companies to sit on outrageously high prices for years rather than compete with each other for market share.
You are correct that the manufacturing cost has gone up.
You are incorrect that this is the root cause of GPU prices being sky high.
If manufacturing cost was the root cause then it would be simply impossible to bring prices down without losing money.
The root cause of GPU prices being so high is lack of competition - AMD and Nvidia are choosing to maximise profit, and they are deliberately undersupplying the market to create scarcity and therefore prop up prices.
In summary, GPOU prices are ridiculously high because Nvidia and AMD are overpricing them because they believe this is what gamers will pay, NOT because manufacturing costs have forced prices to be high.
Whether or not there is real competition depends entirely on whether Intels Arc line of GPUs stays in the market.
AMD strangely has decided not to compete. Its newest GPU the 7900 XTX is an extremely powerful card, close to the top of the line Nvidia RTX 4090 in raster performance.
If AMD had introduced it with an aggressively low price then then they could have wedged Nvidia, which is determinbed to exploit it's market dominance by squeezing the maximum money out of buyers.
Instead, AMD has decided to simply follow Nvidia in squeezing for maximum prices, with AM prices slightly behind Nvidia.
It's a strange decision from AMD who is well behind in market and apparently seems disinterested in increasing that market share by competing aggressively.
So a third player is needed - Intel - it's alot harder for three companies to sit on outrageously high prices for years rather than compete with each other for market share.