Affordable Directx 10 cards

Sooner or later everyone (who has a PC) will be running DirectX 10. We have a couple of releases from hardware bigshots Nvidia and ATI but most of these are for the gaming centric user. Not everyone needs a videocard that costs what? 500? 600 dollars? In some places, you can buy a laptop for that price. Inevitably, some people will be asking: “Aren’t there any nextgen videocards for non-gaming PCs?” Those computers that are mainly used for Web surfing, email, and shopping online; or whose purpose is for business, finances, spreadsheets, and monitoring stock tickers?

These are cards for people who think like that. Released with less fanfare than those enthusiast-level, crazy-priced cards, they’re quietly available for far less money. They also pack less power for 3D applications like games–and Vista’s Aero. Both AMD and Nvidia have made tiered products in their latest lines. Siblings to AMD’s top-of-the-line $400 ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT card come in the form of the 2600 and 2400 cards. In Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 series, there are also the 8600, 8500, and even 8400 series of cards (although the last seems to be available mainly to OEMs).

These lower-tiered cards run from under $200 down to under $100, but are they sufficient for new technologies like Vista and DirectX 10? Can they handle any gaming at all? Let’s find out, shall we?

source: Extreme Tech