I would be completely inclined to agree with you if the fact that the price for FE 1080s wasn't being bashed by all. Doesn't instill confidence that folks here are beating down doors to buy them.
And even if pricing was more reasonable, just wait for stock to return and pick one up.
Your point about taxes always misses the mark because as a consumer I cannot legally evade taxes. What it costs me to actually buy the card is what matters to me. If my country had 20%, 30%, 50% import/sales tax, that's what it would actually cost me to buy the card.
Right now this is what I am going to pay for a 1080 if I bought one:
($909.99 + $12 shipping) *1.13 tax / 1.30811 FX rate = $796 USD
There is no point discussing that VAT/taxes are included to try to obfuscate that I am being asked by NV to pay $800 USD for a next gen upper-mid-range 256-bit GDDR5X 314mm2 card. I don't find this acceptable knowing what happened with GTX980 -> 980Ti. There are also rumours that NV already tapped out the entire Pascal stack which means GP102 is ready to go in 2017 as soon as NV has milked the 1080. If I am spending $800 USD+ per a single card, at that point nothing less than AMD's/NV's true flagships of that generation will be satisfactory to me.
Canada Computers that has 32 stores in my province has 0 cards for sale. The only AIB card they have for pre-order isn't worth buying due to 5+1 VRM power phases and a single 8-pin connector.
Same story at NCIX Canada. 0 cards in stock, 0 AIB cards worth buying.
I found 6 FE cards in the city of Calgary at Memory Express. Every other 1080 is OOS and that includes the only AIB card worth buying at this store.
While it's not absolutely impossible to buy 1080 cards, the stock is pretty limited. Most importantly, imho FE card isn't worth buying even for $599 USD ($796 USD for us Canadians) since it'll run hotter, louder, has no 0 dBA idle fan operation and will on average overclock worse due to insufficient heatsink (unless one runs the fans at 80-100%). Right now, there are almost no good AIB cards for sale yet.
It's clear that NV rushed this launch. When MS/Sony/Nintendo do console launches, they spend 3-4 months building inventory so that once the first several batches of cards sell out, they can restock tens of thousands of more units on a daily basis. Compared to how those companies launch highly anticipated consoles, this launch is underwhelming as far as inventory management goes.
At the same time, some Russian YouTubers have been told that RX 480 won't show up in major Moscow stores until August. This suggests AMD may not fair much better with Polaris 10, but at least they have 1 month to start building up inventory to save face. Current rumoured prices for 1070 in Russia will be ~ $539 USD and for 1080 ~ $821 USD. That's far more than what 670/680 and GTX970/980 cost when they came out.
Either way, I hate paper launches, whether it's from Intel, AMD, NV, etc. Even though Apple's products sell out on launch, at least there the demand is absolutely insane (they can easily sell tens of millions in a month), so it's more forgivable/understandable.
Looks like a hard launch of an in-demand product. Where's the story?
Its people who try to make a case that companies should sell below MSRP in countries with VAT/Toll etc that misses the point. Not to mention not understanding the difference in terms of money usage. You tend to save money elsewhere.
When I see AMD launch cards in this manner, I don't want to give them money.
Exactly. I would gladly pay a 20% VAT in order to get some of the benefits you get in Denmark like basically free education and health care. (I know you pay more taxes as well in other areas though.) As I said in my reply to RS, VAT a separate issue entirely in regards to pricing of a product.
There is another tax for healthcare (at least here in Poland). And believe me, you wouldn't want to have care taken by someone who will not get a single $ from after servicing you. Most of the time you want to go to private doctors and pay for the visit if you want to have something done, in reasonable timeframe, with reasonable quality. So in reality you pay twice.
Not all education is free. I believe you have free schools in US aswell.
VAT mainly feeds wallets of political parties.
Looks like a hard launch of an in-demand product. Where's the story?
Why would the way a company launches a product affect your choice to give them money? Aren't you buying a GPU based on your computing needs be it gaming, mining, computation or other? You can claim that AMD'S lackluster launch will lose them sales to the general population out there, but not to an informed individual like yourself.
The end product is what "should" matter to you. Not how well a company launches its product, because you know how to look deeper.
Why would the way a company launches a product affect your choice to give them money? Aren't you buying a GPU based on your computing needs be it gaming, mining, computation or other? You can claim that AMD'S lackluster launch will lose them sales to the general population out there, but not to an informed individual like yourself.
The end product is what "should" matter to you. Not how well a company launches its product, because you know how to look deeper.
I personally like paper launches. If X product is coming out June 1st no matter what, it's better to have that product fully reviewed by unbiased sources ahead of time. Knowledge is power and nothing is lost from a consumer's point of view having all the information available ahead of time.
Especially when with AMD, even after the RX 480 launch, we have NO IDEA what the performance is of either card. Makes me actually furious, just like the Fury launch did.
When I see AMD launch cards in this manner, I don't want to give them money.
With the 1070/1080 launch, people can say what they want about Nvidia.
Founders Edition = Early Adopters Tax
That's ok, if you don't want it early, dont' pay the tax and get the AIB cards.
1070 = 980Ti
1080 = Best card out
Ok, SIMPLE launch.
With AMD? So confused I don't even want to talk about it.
So it's just a discussion on both vendors strategies and how they are panning out.
Why anyone would want a Founders Edition card is beyond me to begin with, unless you are water cooling and need a reference based card for the water block. Otherwise, AIB cards are the cards to get.
(Aside: and people keep mentioning VAT, but - well - it's funny, if you subtract VAT from the 6950X in Europe it's cheaper than the Newegg price so this idea that it's automatically the case in Europe that the MSRP in the USA is then the base price for Europe which then adds VAT is simply not true).
I personally like paper launches. If X product is coming out June 1st no matter what, it's better to have that product fully reviewed by unbiased sources ahead of time. Knowledge is power and nothing is lost from a consumer's point of view having all the information available ahead of time.
Newegg was never a cheap store. And Newegg sells the 6950X above MSRP.
I think Nvidia recognized the advantage of releasing first, having a halo card at the top, and filling out the lineup later, and capitalized on it.
Especially when with AMD, even after the RX 480 launch, we have NO IDEA what the performance is of either card. Makes me actually furious, just like the Fury launch did.
When I see AMD launch cards in this manner, I don't want to give them money.
I am not sure AMD considers it a launch. Their launch will be when its available with reviews. This is a preview/announcement and they still have the rest of the cards to announce.
If you ask OCUK today, they will most likely tell you they sold around 5000 cards alone. The retailer in Denmark I shop at have passed 2000 cards. And all these are relatively minor retailers.