Nvidia announces sub-$200 DirectX11 graphics card

Now keeping up with the Joneses won't mean re-mortgaging the house.

NVIDIA today announced the latest addition to its Fermi card range, the DX11-enabled GeForce GTX 460. The good bit's that it's priced at $199.

Apparently it delivers "monster tessellation performance" over competing GPUs. Read "ATI".

The hardware's shipping in two versions:

• GTX 460 768MB, with a 192-bit memory interface at an estimated U.S. price of $199
• GTX 460 1GB, with a 256-bit memory interface at an estimated US price of $229

The 768Mb version is available today, and no date was given for the 1Gb card.

Praise for the move has been high.

"With the GeForce GTX 460, NVIDIA is really upping the ante with an amazingly fast DirectX 11 GPU available at a great, mainstream-friendly price," said Epic's Tim Sweeney.

"Its new hardware tessellation support will enable games to reach an entirely new caliber of graphics."

Get the full press release here. There's no mention of launch details outside the US.