Why would someone pay $650 for the performance
Alpha Gamer can get with another GTX 670, that is $150 less.Yes, a single GPU offering is always the better choice, but for price range, the 670 makes much more sense.
Maybe you missed my earlier post:
The GTX 670 is one of the best bang-for-buck cards for HD gaming as you undoubtedly already know. Adding a second card is a solid option if the cash outlay isn't too great.
As for the option of a single card - that stemmed from the talk of waiting for Maxwell, but I'll use my own situation as an example.
The single GTX 670 I'm using at present is one of the higher specced SKU's available. It is also not particularly common. As such it holds value out of proportion with what a used GTX 670 would normally sell for (as do other vendor specials if they aren't beset with problems) for those seeking an identical card for SLI purposes.
There are two choices. Buy another used GTX 670 for SLI (as I did with my previous 580's) which is a cheap performance multiplier. The downside is that their value decreases markedly as the end of their warranty period approaches, and as the series marches from GTX 6xx to 7xx and then to 8xx.
Second choice to sell the card whilst the market value is still high and a sizeable amount of warranty is extant, and move to a card that offers a tangible upgrade in performance, Bear in mind that the 3GB framebuffer in my case would come in handy since I game at 2560x1440, although even 1080 can saturate a 2GB framebuffer given enough antialiasing and post processing. The obvious downside is the decreased performance-per-$, but that is somewhat mitigated by the high price I'll get for my Jetstream 670, and the simplicity of a single GPU (at least for the time being).
So, from an economic standpoint it comes down to the original card (say $370-400) plus the second card ($280-300) gives you an investment of $650-700 in the 670 SLI setup. An investment that on face value is worth $560-600 today ( 2 x $280-300) and less tomorrow. This time next year, those two cards will be worth maybe $400-450, and you'd need to add ~$150 if buying a Maxwell based card* if price segments stay static.
$800-850 net spend
The other alternative is you sell the 670 and take a depreciation loss of $70-100, add $350 to buy a GTX 780. Resell the 780 for ~$450-500 when Maxwell comes-a-callin' (assuming that Maxwell offers enough to warrant the upgrade), and add ~$100 to get the same Maxwell card*.
$750 net spend.
* assuming a GM 104 type-GPU (like-for-like in the product hierarchy)
Most issues I've seen with the cost of upgrading usually stem from the user not maximizing their return by reselling their old kit at the optimum time. Graphics cards have a very distinct economic lifespan that tails off rapidly after two years, Check the prices of GTX 580's and HD 6970's in the resell market and work out the rate of depreciation as soon as a new series enters the public consciousness.
Of course, those are all empirical arguments to bolster the real reason. Some of us just love buying new s___.
In the three an a half years I've been a member here, my graphics cards ( Up until recently I had two rigs - one Nvidia, one AMD) have moved from HD 4890 >> HD 5850 BE (and CFX) >> HD 5850 Toxic 2GB (and CFX), back to XFX 5850 BE's, HD 5770 (and CFX). and GTX 280 (3SLI WC), GTX 580 (and SLI) + GTX 280 (PhysX), and my present lonely GTX 670- which was bought almost solely as a placeholder until GK 110 arrived. This is probably more up/sidegrading than most people would usually undertake. Even taking into account these swap outs it doesn't actually cost me too much to upgrade thanks to the resale value. The golden rule is never buy the reference card unless you plan to put it underwater. Reference cards don't do particularly well in resell.
. Lowering settings from Ultra to High wont change much, and you wont even notice. Turning down detail until you upgrade is the best choice. All those games you can probably play at 1080P at ultra, as long as you upgrade drivers after each release. The 670 may struggle with Witcher 3 though.
