Honestly, this was expected and isn't surprising in the very least.
1. A card which sells for $x in USA as MSRP, usually sells for Rs.65-75(70+-) multiplied by $x in Indian street price.
Example: 7970 was for $550 but released around Rs.37500 which is like Rs.70+ a dollar. And the dollar rate has increased since then.
680 was released at $500 and was for around Rs.34000-35000 at launch so nearly Rs.70 a dollar.
7850 was for $250 multiplied by 60-65, being a mid range card and not high end card.
You need to check the value of dollar at the time of release, and add 30-40% to the dollar value from MSRP to know the street price. And this has been the case since forever, infact, earlier it used to be worse. This is much better than what it used to be 5+ years back.
2. Although it is released for $999 MSPR USA, it is out of stock and people are selling it for $1200+ so Rs.70k in India is steal if you actually look at that situation.
3. I would rather buy this over 2 680s, and it should cost approx as much if not a bit more, as history and common sense points out, so Rs.70k is justified.
4. These cards are not meant for average users or for the middle class or even average upper middle class gamer for that instance. Even if they priced it at Rs.55-60k, that is one hell of a price and the difference in pieces sold would not be very different, but the profit per piece would barely be 1/5th meaning around 1/4th the profit of what they can make now.
5. To the buyers of these cards, money isn't an object. So money is irrelevant when you are talking about these cards. Well off people buy 7970s or 680s, most people don't buy 690s or 7990s comfortably even in USA and those who do don't mind spending this much every 6-12 months just on GPUs any way. So for this particular target/niche market, this price isn't that high and also the above points support it.
6. Nobody is forcing you to buy it. If you just game at 1080p then for 60Hz a 7870 or GTX 580 is enough nearly all the game. If you play at 120Hz even then a 7970 OC or 670 OC or 680 OC is more than enough and even for 1440p (sans AA in some games) a single card is pretty reasonably strong. This card is only meant for those who have a multi-monitor setup or a 1440p/1600p monitor and want to max out AA as well, and their monitors alone are worth comparable money. Besides, this is just a fraction of what goes into their PC hardware.
Most such users would go for 3930k if their are sensible and not Ivy/SB, even just for gaming because : 1. They want that extra smoothness and minimums which benchmarks don't tell. 2. They have money to burn and want the most expensive hardware around. 3. They can pay money for very little difference in real world performance, and a lot of money. So for such people 70k a year for something which will easily fetch 20-25k after a year, so around 50k net isn't that big a sum.
7. You can't expect this much performance for less than this anyway. This is at least as fast as a 670 SLI with less MS, less space, less heat, a single card slot and can be Quad SLId further. This is any day worth at least as much as 680 SLI and that is what it is priced at.
8. 590 was a combination of 2 570s and yet priced at 40-50k, which was much more than 2 single 570s.
9. 6990 was priced at far more than 2 single 6950s, and it lied btw 6950cf and 6970cf, yet it was priced around 6970cf or even more.
10. This is a combination of 2 underclocked 680s and is a bit faster or at least as fast as 2 reference 670s and is a much more enhanced multi GPU setup.
11. This is the launch price, of something which isn't even easily available even in USA.
12. you might find me being unfair with you but it isn't like that. You can't expect a company to give stuff away for free which AMD had done with 4800 and 5800 cards. This card delivers an experience worth 70k compared to what the market delivers at present. Why should Nvidia undersell it? Even at 50k the number of sellers won't be many more anyway. It makes business sense to price it at this rate.
13. For every 1 card that is sold in India, at least 20-50 of these cards will be sold in USA. Obviously the price difference has to be there. Indian dealers can't exist with just a single sale for every 50 sales abroad unless they charge a premium, at least some premium. Even if they price it at Rs.50k, which is less than $1000, that 1 sale would mean just 1.5 sales for every 50 in USA. That isn't financially viable. You can ask them to sell for less than $999 or 50k, if for every one card sold in India, only one is sold in USA. That won't happen even at 40k, so that point is mute. They have to price higher to exist.
14. Just because a given person can't afford something, is no reason to blame others. This card is genuinely worth this much. The economy is growing, prices will go up even further. Within 4-5 generations, a dual GPU card will probably cost upwards of 1 lac. Because the economy is growing that much. Everybody is making much more money that before. Everybody who is in the market for such a card and can afford it. I am not talking of the average citizen but of the upper middle class and affluent masses.
15. India's majority population won't buy a 7970 OC even for Rs.10k. Most people can't even afford to buy an external graphic card for that matter. So should companies sell 7970 for whatever their budget is? Of course not, 690 is for a premium niche market and it is well priced for the performance it delivers and the international price it holds. There will be buyers who are serious and can afford it. If it was possible to make 10x the profit by selling at 40k, dealers would automatically do that. But the fact is that won't happen because they know that no matter what their margin is, these cards are few and not many can buy irrespective. So they need to balance the price accordingly. I doubt there would be more than 10-20 sales in assembled hardware in the country regardless of the price for 690. Why not sell for 20% extra, make 3 times the margin but just sell half the units. That still means 50% more profit with lower operating costs which means yet more profit.
---------- Post added at 07:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:51 PM ----------
70000 INR is way too freaking much!!Idk when asus would learn to 'launch' there gpus at competetive prices in India. Even GTX680 was overpriced! GTX680 sli would be a better deal at 64k.
Anybody who actually wants to buy this card doesn't give much of a damn whether this card is 64k or 70k. It only cuts the profit of the dealer by 6k which helps nobody. It is like saying Intel EEs to be priced at Rs.25k to sell more. They don't need to sell more, they profit more with slightly fewer sales and other sales overall, at EE priced at 60k. And anybody who can buy at 50k can buy at 60k. Money isn't an object for such people.
When 7970 was released I was hoping for it to be around 30kish. Sadly it was 35-36k. With SMC I ended up paying nearly 38k. But the thing is for this market a few grands isn't that much money. Buyers of such hardware can easily afford to spend this kind of money. A few grands here and there doesn't make or break a sale.
I can't afford a 70 lacs car either, but I can afford to spend Rs.30-40k+ on a GPU.