Prior to the current massive shortage and "gouge pricing", well over 40 Mhash on ETH was EASY to achieve for well under $600 using a pair of RX 470/480/570/580 cards or a pair of GTX 1060 cards.
I think you could also get there NOW via 3 x GTX 1050 - which are still in wide fairly good supply and NOT getting price gouged at all - for under $500 and possibly close to $400.
Tradeoff is that the rig density is lower.
Agree, but that investment is not justifable first of all coz of the power efficiency... lets say I put 3x1050 it's about 75-80w each, in total 225-240w against 135w....
So bigger PSU, less cards in a rig, more money for the RAM, SSD, mobo, risers...