Remember, you also need an expensive power supply, at least 1500 Watt, with 10 PCI-E leads.
It all depends on your electricity price, some no doubt will still be pulling in profit after having (espically if btc keeps climbing). Hard to say how many cent's per KW after having .... but yes some still will turn profit running.
Also if you go with the AP3 psu it's not really that expensive for what you get. I have had good luck with them and since they kept design with S9 means multiple generations of miners can run on it. And I have spent more on ATX psu's so... don't see it as horribly priced. But guess my opinion on that.