I have purchased two EVGA 7600GT cards, originally with the intent of making an SLI system, succeeding in running SH4 for about a month before....
Backstory: somewhere in the bowels of the Asian continent, a scheming employee of a semiconductor company which manufactured a nice proportion of the world's supply of electrolytic capacitors quietly stole the plans for his corporation's product, along with the formula for the electrolyte (that's the big secret of the whole process). For big humongous bucks he provided that to a new startup company with the intent of blowing his original company out of the water with cheaper prices.
Unfortunately, his company had taken the step of protecting themselves, and the stolen electrolyte formula was lacking a critical ingredient. Without ingredient X, the capacitor would perform perfectly for a period of months. Then chemical changes in the electrolyte would cause the electrolytic capacitor to.....explode. But no one knew that until millions of the cheap little buggers were sold to all manner of graphics card, motherboard, television, radio, fill in the blank, manufacturers.
So my two EVGA 7600GT graphics boards were cute little time bombs. On November 9, my first one detonated, wiping out my SLI masterpiece just as I was beginning testing to see what advantages SLI actually delivered in SH4:
Five of six in the photo are toast. I contacted EVGA and they immediately made good on their lifetime warranty, sending me a new card, while I ran my remaining card alone. The day before I received the replacement card I heard an explosion inside my computer case that sounded like a whip cracking in hell!
The card continued to work, but when I put the replacement card in I noticed that one electrolytic cap was burst open. Playing it safe, I now again ran on one card only and RMA'd my second 7600GT.
This afternoon I received the replacement. It was in an unmarked white box this time and somehow it felt too heavy. Hold it, the cooling fan's heat sink looks different, what's this?
7900GS! I love these guys!!!!!!!!!!
So there goes my intended SLI system again, but the 7900GS should perform even better than the SLI'd 7600GTs could anyway.
For icing on the cake my processor upgrade, Opteron 175 came in at the same time. I think I'll get some frame rates in screenshots, take the thing apart and do the same thing to see what I have here.
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe!