So, back to my original question, asked looking at it from "my" point of view, why spend the money on a card that's going to give you a minimal performance increase at best.
A darn good question. I'm agreeing with you! The 'two step minimum', I thought, was a good idea - and that's exactly what you were saying. We agree, God forbid
But, do take into account: People's circumstances vary. Take myself, for instance....you gave me similar advice some months ago, as I struggled with two 8800GS cards (apparently lacking memory, as I run SLI and each card only had 384M). I even think I learned, at the time, that two lesser cards in SLI aren't better than one better card alone (say, the two 9800's I bought ultimately, compared to a single 280).
Now, why didn't I just go ahead and buy a 280, rather than staying with SLI and two 9800's?
Well, circumstances:
One, the 280 at the time was still about $100 more than the deal I got on the two 9800GT's I bought. And, since everyone here pounded on memory, I thought the two 9800's with 1G/ea was a good choice.
But the real factor was that I had already bought the two 8800GS cards - the ones I was looking to upgrade from.
eVGA has a 'trade-up' program, good for 90 days. Trouble is, you can't trade up two cards for one. So, I could either:
- Get the two 9800GT/1G cards through eVGA's trade up for <$100 each, by trading in the two 8800GS's, OR
- Keep both the 8800GS's (eat the cost, at least temporarily) *and* pay top dollar for a 280 card.
(and, recognizing your meaningful advice at the time, a third option was to buy two 8800GTX cards which were much cheaper than the single 280 - but there again, no trade-up was available).
Finally, while OFF seems to gain little from SLI, that *definitely* is not true of most of the other games I play. So, I could get a better deal, improve performance in all but 1 game, and save money. "No brainer", as they say.
Long and boring story, but the point is that circumstance often dictates the decisions people make. You asked why someone would do what they did, and I can only guess that 602RAF had his own reasons.