Nvidia Corp. has quietly added low-end DirectX 10-compliant offerings into its product lineup. The novelties are expected to become available from several manufacturers, but at this time there is no recommended price onto the new graphics cards from the chip developer itself.

Nvidia’s GeForce 8400 GS graphics cards are based on the code-named G86 graphics processing units (GPUs) and will come equipped with 128MB or 256MB of onboard memory. There are not a lot of details about Nvidia’s G86, but what is known is that it features 16 unified shader processors, 64-bit memory controller and features 450MHz/900MHz clock-speeds for the core, whereas memory operates at 800MHz. The G86 chip is made using 80nm process technology.

Pricing of the new boards remains not totally clear, but neither of the two versions will be priced at higher than $89, according to some sources familiar with the company’s plans. Nvidia did not release any statements on the matter of the GeForce 8400 GS announcement by press time, nonetheless, the appropriate product is listed on its web-site.

“Awesome features at an incredible value – Nvidia GeForce 8400 graphics processors deliver. Essential for watching HD DVD and Blu-ray movies on a PC, accelerating the Microsoft Windows Vista experience, and powering Microsoft DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 games,” Nvidia’s description of the world’s first low-end DirectX 10 graphics card reads.

The release of a cost-effective DirectX 10-compliant graphics board implies that Nvidia is ready to cover virtually all market segments with modern GPUs, something, which will take its rival ATI, graphics product group of Advanced Micro Devices, some time, as the company started to ship its new Radeon HD 2000-series graphics chips to partners relatively recently.