Adjusting for inflation, they are.
It's at least one aspect, so is total complexity of the chip, as well as the substrate it's mounted to and the related PCB design, along with power delivery, memory, the software which allows it all to function correctly, all the prototypes and proofs of concept, all the unit tests on all the various mixtures of PCBs and chipsets and CPUs and operating environmental factors. There are literal armies of people figuring out how to lay those transistors down, how the chip will mount to the PCB (VIAs and BGA layouts), and of course how the PCBs are routed and assembled and tested and designed and implemented.
All of this is hard, and requires more and more people with more and more experience and education as the complexity grows. It isn't a bill of materials and done.
And it's true. The price is set by what the market will bear, and if the actual underlying physical product costs so much that the market price ends up creating a loss, then that product won't be sold -- period. That's how the free market works. This also includes the "price" of prestige and luxury; make no mistake, a dGPU is still a luxury item in this day and age.
It's how a Louis Vuitton (sp?) purse will be sold for thousands of dollars, for perhaps dozens of dollars of materials and labor.
It's how a diamond ring from the DeBeers cartel will be sold for tens of thousands of dollars, for a stone and some metal and labor which cost them perhaps one tenth or less, and which couldn't be sold on the used market for even half the price.
It's how a Mclaren Speedtail will cost you two million dollars, for what probably amounts to about $230,000 worth of parts, materials and labor.
Things are not priced by the aggregate of their bill of materials.
