well one of my 7900GT cards dropped a cap (not even sure how it went through physical damage). I tried to ghetto solder it back on, but it failed miserably and I lost the isolating plate for it. Long story short, I'm going to end up with a new card. Well, I thought why not make that two?
I got an xfx
Newegg.com - XFX PVT88SFDDU GeForce 8800 GS XXX 384MB 192-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards
and an evga
Newegg.com - EVGA 384-P3-N851-AR GeForce 8800 GS 384MB 192-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards
I went with different manufacturers so I could get the rebate on both.
They have different speeds, but they're the same card. I've already created a custom bios to start the clocks at 680/1400/850 (1700 effective). They should be good.
From what I could see, at ~700mhz the GS will beat the GT in several benches (well it's nominal, it's about on par). So it should be good. I've only seen one decent review of the card, and I hope they do well in SLI (it wasn't covered in the review).
At any rate, I'll probably update when I get them monday/tues and then Do a proper review with an SLI portion. I'll have a 7900GT (stock and speeds that put a 7900GTX to shame), an 8600 GTS and that card to compare against.
All of this will be done on my
4x512mb ddr400 cas 2.5 ram (forget ram speed, but it's linked to my fsb)
ABIT deluxe SLI-32 Nf4 mb
X2 3800+ @ 2.80 ghz (at like 1.45 v) w/ zalman 9500
600 Watt Ultra PSU (these cards use less power than my old ones)
2x160gb sata II drives.
if anyone has any experience with these cards let me know, I'm dieing to test them out.