Inexpensive DX10 Graphics

[Pi rules]

Source: Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/02/nvidias-geforce-8600-series-brings-dx10-without-breaking-the-ba/)

If you want to join the ranks of the cool kids with one of those nifty DirectX 10 cards for promoting Vista shenanigans, but don't want to sell any vital internal organs to purchase a GeForce 8800 GTX (http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/09/nvidias-geforce-8800-gtx-reviewed/) or one of those upcoming ATI R600 (http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/01/ati-r600-graphics-card-benchmarked-cruises-by-nvidias-geforce/) cards, then you might be happy to hear that the price of entry is about to get a whole lot cheaper. Details of NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce 8600 series have been revealed, with the 8600 GT going for roughly $150 and the 8600 Ultra demanding a $180 pricetag. Considering the fact that an 8800 GTX will cost you about $600 at the moment, this is good news indeed. The specs aren't anything to sneeze at, either, with both 8600 cards being built with an 80nm process and 300 million transistors. The GT runs at 350MHz, with 256MB of RAM to call its own, while the Ultra sports a 500MHz core, with 512MB of memory. The launch is supposedly timed to coincide with the R600's launch, will certainly steal a bit of ATI's thunder.

I read about DX10 in some magazines, including MaximumPC. It looks like I might actually be able to afford a decent graphics card.

[dbarrow]

Well... the specs will be good and the cards may support DX10 but... it may take some time before the apps and games take to it in full swing.
DX9 has been out for how long? Only the most recent games have it and, in many cases, while the display looks a lot more interesting, frame rates and "playability" have been considerably lacking on anything less than high end machines.
You can have a DX10 machine, OS, and vid card and still have limited choices of what can use it.

[rexgrant]

Well... the specs will be good and the cards may support DX10 but... it may take some time before the apps and games take to it in full swing.
DX9 has been out for how long? Only the most recent games have it and, in many cases, while the display looks a lot more interesting, frame rates and "playability" have been considerably lacking on anything less than high end machines.
You can have a DX10 machine, OS, and vid card and still have limited choices of what can use it.
That statement makes a lot of sense,DX10 will not be out for quite a while and knowing Microsoft it will probibly need a service pack to get it right.
Most game makers will not start producing games that will benefit from direct X
until it is proved and you will still get the result you get today on most of them.
You can now buy Two Nvidia 7900 gtx video cards for less than one 8800 gtx
And the two running in sli with the same CPU and a 700watt psu will out perform the 8800 without any problems.And buy the time they have ironed out all the problems they will have with Direct X ten the 8800 will be out of date
If I were you I would go with 939 SLI boards and cards and wait until they have sorted out direct X Ten and the producers have caught up,The exception is Microsoft Flight Simulator X there if you use sli you loose the ability to use more than one monitor so you will get a better performance with the 8800gtx,also performance in FSX relies on the CPU.
Regards
Rex