nuff' said.

newegg has in stock 4 GTX 260 models with a price of 399$...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048 1305520548 106792634 1067940781&bop=And&Order=PRICE

You got to be s*itting me LOL. You got to be very stupid to be fan boy to such extend to buy 260GTX for $500.

The only thing that comes to my mind at that point:

Ha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

They should've just skipped a generation like ATI did with their x1000 series. Their still a couple generations behind but their selling more advanced chips than Nvidia if somewhat minor.

Newegg has (as of this being posted) four GTX260s for $399...

http://www.pcper.com/index.php#NewsID-5857

Since the $299 ATI 3870 trumps the GTX 260 in most benchmarks, it's already bad enough to expect people to pay $399, and anything higher is just crazy.
The only reason I can see someone buying the GTX 260 (or GTX 280 for that matter) is because they are experimenting/developing with CUDA or only wish to support nVidia no matter what.

If you want a high performance level, you can buy TWO Radeon 3870 cards for less than the cost of the GTX 280. And on the other hand, the Nvidia $450 9800GX2 actually beats the $650 GTX 280 in every benchmark! Nvidia obviously needs to rescale all their prices...

For the rich gamer with an unlimited budget, I still don't think the GTX 280 is worth it. They'd be better off getting 2X 9800GX2 cards...