Tracking down all the regional pricing data for various GPUs is very time consuming, and I figure people in other areas can fill in the blanks. If the 3070 is being sold for A$1500, though, that's just price gouging. Worst-case, it should be maybe A$1000, and probably lower than that. You can find RX 5700 XT starting at around A$550, whereas it's currently $380 in the US, so only a 45% difference -- and 40% of that is exchange rate.
I can appreciate that.
Sadly, that seems typical of Australian retailers. Core components are all the same; GPU, CPU, Motherboard.
I tried to attach an image but "Something keeps going wrong". Below is an extract from an email that clarifies what's allowed.
I get my prices from aggregators like staticice.com.au, myshopping.com.au, shopbot.com.au etc.
There are a lot of grey marketers here. So after weeding them out you're left with about 8 - 10 retailers. Looking at reputable brands like ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, EVGA, you're looking at about $650 - $750 for a 5700XT.
I have 10 PCs. I used to upgrade them all every two years, but now, I upgrade may be one or two components a year for may be one or two computers.
Anyway, it is what it is. If that is the price, I won't be buying them, no matter how good they are, which is a shame because games are becoming so demanding these days a GPU upgrade is almost a must-do if you want to keep up.
My son has a GTX 1660 Ti running 2 x 1440p monitors. Runscape hammers his PC. GPU at 100%, CPU at 80%. Temps in the 80s. Fans going flat out at 100%.
I have an ASUS RTX 2070 Super in my test PC. On a single 1440p monitor Runescape barely makes a blip.
Setting prices
Businesses are free to set their prices as they see fit, which means we cannot tell a business to set or change their prices. However, businesses must make pricing decisions on their own. They also must not mislead consumers about prices. In addition, a business could break the law by selling below cost for an extended period to damage competition. It is also illegal for suppliers to try to set a minimum price that retailers have to sell above.
Price gouging
Price gouging is a term used to express dissatisfaction with a high price—a price so high that the person using the term thinks the price is unfair or unreasonable. Price gouging is not against the law so, if they want to, businesses can set high profit margins.