BigMack70 :
ekseli :
By the time you're going to see a noticeable difference in games with the 760 SLI over the 770, the 770 is going to be cheap enough that you can buy another one at the cost of a single 760 now.
So a single 770 is far better value for your money right now. You can SLI it later if and when you feel the need. But if you go with two 760s now, you have no such upgrade option later. In the meantime the 770 is plenty fast enough and the extra price of two 760s is in my opinion really hard to justify.
Over the long term, 770 with the option to SLI it later is far better value for your money and doesn't commit as much of your money (or your second PCI-e port) right away.
The single 770 is going to be good for at least a year, more likely two to three years. By then you can evaluate if you want to SLI or if some entirely new card is a better option for the same money. 760 SLI will certainly last you for three years as well, but it obviously costs more and doesn't have the upgrade options that a single 770 has.
In short, if you go with one 770 and decide to SLI 1-2 years down the line, the 770 SLI might end up costing the same as the 760 SLI. If you had that choice now, there would probably be little choice about which one you would want to get, right?
Well, that's actually the choice you do have, right now.
Gotta disagree with you here. For one thing, demanding games like Crysis 3 already will benefit considerably from 760 SLI over a 770, which indicates upcoming next gen games will too. Also, you seem to be underestimating the cost difference between 760 and 770 SLI. 770 SLI is about $300 more expensive, and by the time a 770 has dropped enough in price to drop that, 770 SLI will no longer be a very good option in light of newer GPUs.
760 SLI is faster than a single 770, no argument there. Whether it is noticeable in any other game besides Crysis 3, I doubt it. Even Crysis 3 is playable at highest settings with a single 770, non-OC. And I honestly don't see many games more demanding than Crysis 3 coming out in the near future. In almost every other (if not indeed every) title, both now and in the near future, the difference is either marginal or irrelevant. Yet the 760 SLI costs around 25% more than a single 770 today. That's not a very good bang for the buck.
The 770 gives you more choice when you eventually really do
need more speed. You can either go SLI, or indeed as you said it, spend that money on a new card instead. SLI at that point might not make sense as you say, but contrary to your argument that's actually a good thing; it means you got an even better outcome by not committing yourself to an SLI solution from the beginning. And
if SLI is still attractive, a dual 770 is going to be one powerful card combo even two or three years from now. It may cost more than a 760 SLI bought now, but it's also going to be a lot faster.
All that said, the 760 SLI is a very good solution and has a great value relative to other cards that deliver the same performance. However I would not commit to SLI from the get-go unless I absolutely had to, because it limits your future options and gives, in this case, very little noticeable advantages in the short term. Especially if you don't plan on playing countless of hours of Crysis 3.
I'd go with either a
single 760 or 770 and upgrade to SLI when there really was a need for it. With 770 that need is bound to arise later, whereas for 760 the upgrade would be affordable somewhat earlier. But going straight to SLI 760 is a waste of money at this point, in my opinion. If you're a big fan of Crysis it might still make a good investment, but if not, I'd reconsider.