Sure, if you want to only observe the "every cloud has a silver lining" aspect of the situation. Ususally the biggest reason for a price hike is when demand outstrips supply. Maybe they are selling well. Maybe there just aren't any to sell?
Do you have a hard time finding 6850s and 6870s? I don't, and my searches have included shops in: Canada, USA, Germany and the UK. So, the implication that I'm using some unfounded optimism to support my claim that there are cards to sell and they are selling well, is simply false.
There is no maybe, with respect to the sales of those cards. Having said that, note that I'm not making some 'this was a huge win of a launch!' claim, so your undermining of a positive aspect of the 68XX series is both futile and unnecessary (and counter-productive, as you will see later in this post).
Perhaps AMD's 68XX are not at an ideal intersection of supply and demand (where excess supply costs them money, retailers have to start offering rebates and incentives, packaging games and so on-like another company has had to do with its products), but it's just clear that there is a supply of the products, and that the demand for those products enables suppliers to raise the prices. It's that simple.
I think 'suffering from excess demand' would have been easily applied to the 5970 part a while ago, where people actually were interested in buying the part even at that lofty price, and one had great difficulty finding a part anywhere. This is clearly not the same with the 68XXs, so 'suffering' is misleading because it is false, and perversely I get an infraction (oddly) for being absolutely right in calling someone out on his (admitted- it's written on the forums so referring to someone's explicit post is NOT A MEMBER CALLOUT) agenda. Having 'feelings' that cards are unreliable is not scientific, nor should those 'feelings' support an inference from emotion to fact.
This analysis isn't silver lining, take a look at the supply of the 68XX series and tell me it's difficult to find one and the ones that are left are at really high prices. Please.
Lots of retailers jacked up the price of the GTX580 as well, should I write and publish an article that says Nvidia is SUFFERING from excess demand? Or should Nvidia rather be happy that their card is selling well? Come on. This is exactly why people who claim this forum is AMD dominated are talking rubbish. The very same logic that Nvidia fans use to diminish accomplishments from AMD could easily be applied to Nvidia too, but they aren't (as I'm doing right here). And Nvidia fans don't see that, in my post, is a comment that is directly compatible and complimentary to Nvidia's flagship card. If you're looking for a fanboy, look elsewhere.
