As much as I love the 7900GS, since the price of the X1950PRO and X1950XT have gone down you may want to look at one of those. More so the X1950XT as it's amazing.
The X1950XT however from Connect3D can be had for 180 bucks and this will DESTROY both cards for 30 bucks....not even a comparison really.
Vernong when you make a build you usually only put one Hard drive and one optical drive in the initial build becuase thats all you need to run the system. Since optical drives are practical enough just put one or even none in the build until someone says they "need" one.