At first I was like you, but now that I see all 5870 offers, it cant be anything but 399 really.
If 5870 was meant to be ~50% faster than 4870/90, 299 would be fine. But now we see it's a solid doubling of functional units, with a fast clock too so it's not giving away anything there. As high as stock 4890 out of the gate! Combine that with the supposed power consumption.
I mean it supposed to compete with 4870X2 and GTX295 on performance, so couldn't you look at it as making things actually cheaper (since it's cheaper than those)?
The way i see it, technology advancements (especially in gpu world) are supposed to bring double performance at the same price range.
The 4870 reached 250% of 3870 and it cost 250 euros while thw 3870 cost 100euros.
The 5870 seems to repeat that and since the 4870 already costs 100euros i don't see the reason why the 5870 should cost more than 250 euros!
The 4850 already costs 75 euros and i also don't see the reason why the 5850 should cost more than 150 euros!
Last year, the 4850 was 100 euros cheaper at launch day than the 9800GTX, so i don't see why the 5850 shouldn't cost 100 euros less than the GTX 285, since it seems that it will perform the same!
I'm sorry, but the way i see it, ATI is starting Nvidia's blood sucking strategies and please don't tell me it's just business, cause it's not!
Business is when you launch the 4850 at 150euros and you should do the same for the 5850!
I've read that ATI's goal is to reach 50% market share during 2009-2010 and they will not succeed in doing that if the prices are not 199,299,499USD for the 5850,5870,5870X2. The most i would accept is 250,350,550USD and that alone because the chip is a bit larger than the rv770 and the 5850 will not use cheap ddr3 any more (i think).