Another way to look at it:
Gtx970 has 75% of the 980ti's performance
The 7700xt has 53% of the 7900xtx's performance and 42% of the rtx4090's performance.
So with the 970, for $330 the gamer had 75% of the top tier's performance but with $429 7700xt you have just 53%/42% of top tier performance.
So clearly the 970 and 7700xt are not even in the same performance class, which is what you pointed out, the 7700xt is at the gtx960's performance class which was $160
Titan maxwell was 8% faster. Given that it was a real card, released on the same gen by Nvidia it counts. So your 75% is actually 67%. Die size? very similar. The 970 was slightly bigger, but then 28nm. The 970 was also a scam. 3.5gb of fast VRAM, then basically 500mb of DDR.
In other words? the Titan should have not existed, and the 980Ti should have been the Titan. I mean, heck, if every one wants to dictate what cards should be what I can too, right? (yes, my tongue is wedged in my cheek).
Now if the 7700XT turns out to be a skank? fine. I can't see that happening though.
You also need to factor in all of the other things that have driven prices up, though. Like for example when the 970 came out? I could buy a PC game for £30 or less, because no licensing fee. The console versions were £50. Now? PC games cost £60 with no licensing fee. The reason? again, popularity. If consoles ever again gain the traction they used to have and PC hardware sells at the same levels as then? then you can expect the prices to fall.
As I have said before, the 970 and 980 were gaming GPUs. They were absolutely useless for anything else. I mean if you cast your mind back to the AMD 7970 and how beefy and "non gaming" it was? that is why Nvidia were able to make their much smaller Kepler dies go much faster in games because they could clock balls, due to their gaming inspired tiny (in comparison) dies. And that continued until Turing. All that while Nvidia were spanking AMD on every front. Die size and cost to make, clock speed and gaming performance.
Maybe now more people will understand why I absolutely hate RT. Maybe I would like it if it didn't change anything, and didn't cost so much more for what you get. Which is absolutely sod all in gaming terms. If anything? it has hurt gaming. A lot.
