Affordable Modern Graphics Cards

EconolineCrush writes "If graphics cards that cost more than a mortgage payment make your wallet quiver, it's worth checking out ATI's Radeon X700 and NVIDIA's GeForce 6600 series. Both are based on cut down versions of latest and greatest graphics chips, but at under $200, they sell for a fraction of the price of high-end cards. What's more, these $200 wonders outperform last year's $500 cards, sometimes by embarrassingly large margins. The Tech Report has in-depth reviews of both the GeForce 6600GT and Radeon X700 XT if you're in the market for a next-gen graphics card that's a little more affordable."

Comments

What about the $100 range?

[dpilot]

Almost two years back, I picked up a Radeon 8500LE for under $100. (actually, about $80) At the time, the Radeon 9700 and 9500 were top and second tier DX9 cards. The 8500 was a third-tier DX8.1 card. While it didn't have the latest features, it *was* feature-complete to the previous set.

These are good $200 cards, no doubt. But it looks to me as if the sub-$100 cards haven't made as much *relative* progress as the more expensive ones.