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The high prices for GPU's and CPU's are based on the company figuring out the highest price that the market will take, in addition to ensuring that they cover the R&D costs as quickly as possible before the product becomes obsolete, thus providing the maximum net profit for the company.
In terms of inching closer to covering R&D and profiting over BOM+ labor. if Nvidia wanted, they could make a GTX 980 in house and sell it for $50, and they would still make a large profit.
Furthermore, if they have already sold enough to cover the R&D, then pretty much any price above BOM+ manufacturing, will be a profit for them.
Depending on the negotiating power of massdrop, they should be able to reach out to nvidia at least for reference cards, and unlock a "low" price of $250 for the GTX 970, especially considering that it is a card that is having trouble selling due to nvidia lying about some of the hardware and software limitations of the GPU.