Reference or Founder Edition GPUs

You did not put a time scope on your question, so I shall answer that yes I purchased a Founders Edition GTX 1080 in May 2016.

In that specific case, the maximum clock frequency practically available was slightly higher than on the aftermarket cards. But I think rather generally reference edition cards are regarded as having inferior cooling solutions to many of the aftermarket cards.

What is your particular reason for insisting on reference or founders edition?

Unfortunately right now it is very difficult to get any new video card, never mind builders' or founders' editions, or GPU at MSRP or list price. I was building a new PC last month and found one of the few video cards available at retail at any price was a mediocre card (GeForce GTX 1050 TI) good enough for desktop work or very light gaming needs but not good enough for a serious gamer. I had purchased the same card as an upgrade in 2019 for $180. It was now selling for more than double that amount. It's not worth over $300 to me. But at least you could actually put that one in your shopping cart and get it shipped within a day. The great majority of videocard models, especially better and newer ones, are simply out of stock at all retail outlets. You can find them on eBay, selling at highly marked-up prices. Good luck on warranty coverage if there's a problem.

And builders' or founders' editions of videocards with serious firepower for gamers or people compiling video?? Unless you have a friend in the business willing to do you a favor, new builders' or founders' editions of videocards will almost certainly be far higher relative to list price than 200%--and the list price was pretty steep to begin with.

The shortage of video cards is due to a well-documented shortage of chips and demand for new cards outstripping supply, so bot shoppers have moved in to buy and resell what little inventory there is for a sharply marked-up price and profit. Like Ticketmaster, I would guess that some of the people doing the marking-up are retailers who should simply be passing inventory along at list price but can sell for much more under-the-table, so ordinary shoppers looking to pay MSRP have no chance. The shortage is not expected to ease for at least two years when new chip fabrication plants come online.

Rather than buy a new video card, I just moved my 1050 TI to my new PC, the only hardware component I did not replace. It's also getting harder to find CPUs, motherboards and RAM for the same reason, although the markups are not as high as GPUs, partly why I pushed to build now. I should have done it six months or a year ago. As it was I had to buy compenents from multiple retailers instead of getting everything from one retailer, because stuff is out of stock.

I was under the impression that mining digital currencies was the cause of the video card shortage.

Yes the chip shortage and particularly GPU shortage is partly and maybe primarily due to mining digital currencies, but there's also increased demand from gamers, video compilers, and many other users of semiconductor chips, who are getting caught in market forces even though they have no intention to mine digital currency.

I was at microcenter the other week. The sales rep says people line up day before truck day to try to score a card. Worse than an Idevice.

I picked up a 1660ti last october for around $230. I think that card goes for ~$600 now. Don't care much for gaming but it has improved hevc decoding support compared to the 1000 series. Don't plan on upgrading any more video cards for some time now.

If I build a pc for someone who wants gaming hardware, I tell them to be prepared to pay $$$$$.

At least boards and cpu's are becoming more readily available. 5900X's are instock often at the local MC's now.

I think within the next 6-12 months prices will start to come down.