At this point I would go with the 6950XT. It is much faster than the 6800XT, and IMO will last a lot longer.
I hold a little hope for the actual review benchmarks, but even if it is what I am seeing then it will be a case of waiting for the 6000 series to sell out, and then the price drops will happen (which was sort of confirmed in an interview. Scott said that basically once the 6000 was gone (sorta kinda, in a round about way) that the AIBs would have freedom to basically price the 7700XT as they wanted). And I expect the 7800XT will follow, but not until they have sold out of 6800XT and so on.
Remember, AMD's place in the market is tiny. As such they still have a whole F load of the 6000 cards they over produced during the mining and C-vid boom. And they don't sell like Nvidia do, hence why they still have lots and have dragged their heels on these cards. If these were much better than the last gen? no one would buy the last gen unless they were ridiculously cheap. So, kinda like Nvidia they are competing with themselves and their last gen until they are gone. Which means? they are going to be over priced, to make the last gen look better (typical sales technique).
Talking of which. I used to work for a marketing company. We sold some herbal BS. I did some covert work one night and slipped into the owner's office. Actual cost to produce? 60 cents. Sale price? $59.90. As has been said, there is a lot of money in R&D, testing and production. What was left out though? marketing. That costs a fortune as well.
