sliderider wrote:I've seen Dell XPS 7950 GX2 cards for $45 already. It might seem like a lot of money for a DX9 card, but with what they cost new, how many do you really think are out there? And what other pure DX9 card is even going to come close to it in performance? Not the Radeon x1950XTX. That falls about 20% slower than a 7950 GX2 in some games. I think $45 is probably going to be rock bottom for these for a while and then they will start to inch back up in price when people realize they are collectible. Even if you were to SLi/Crossfire any two other cards from that time period, it would still cost you more than $45 so the 7950 GX2 looks like a bargain. I'm tempted to stash away a few of these for future resale while they are still reasonably priced.
Before you go off buying every available 7950GX2 out there, remember that they are *not* universally compatible with PCIe motherboards and *will* have issues with various motherboards, rendering them unusable/incompatible and the issues are all over the place in terms of how they present (you can get anything/everything from no-boot, visual corruption, random BSoDs, etc). The X1950XTX and 7900GTX are much more consistent and will work in basically anything with a PCIe slot and enough power (especially in the case of the X1950XTX). nVidia still maintains a "GX2 compatibility chart" on their website, although it hasn't been updated very recently so it shouldn't be considered the end-word in GX2 compatibility, but by and large I'd stick to that list or close derivatives thereof if you want to ensure that your GX2 will play nice. There are motherboards that are newer than the GX2 that do not work with them as well, so this isn't just an "old boards have problems" or "boards with XYZ chipset have problems" kind of thing - it's a GX2 thing.
And on top of that you also have all of the issues associated with early-generation SLI, like incompatibility with multi-monitor setups, and the micro-stutter phenomenon. Scaling is also not guaranteed, and there are situations where a 7900GTX can be a more attractive option. I honestly doubt their pricing is going to "skyrocket" as a result - they're finicky, power hungry boards that are quirky to live with at best, and a royal mess to deal with at worst.
This isn't to diminish the significance of the 7950GX2 historically, but they are very-much "first generation" products with all of the woes and pitfalls that go with that. If you want a multi-GPU card that more or less "just works" look at the later AMD and nVidia boards, like the GTX 295 or HD 5970.
