Albatron was the first of many graphics card companies to tell us today it has released a graphics card based on Nvidia's new, 65nm GeForce 8400 GS chip, developed as an entry-level DirectX 10 product.

Albatron's 8400GS: get into DirectX 10, inexpensively

Albatron's version is simply called the 8400GS. The board connects the GPU to 256MB of DDR 2 memory across an 64-bit bus and clocked at the standard 8400 GS speed of 400MHz. The GPU itself runs at 450MHz, as per Nvidia's spec.

To hook up a screen, the board provides one each of the following: dual-link DVI, s-video and VGA.

How does the 8400 GS compare with its GeForce 8-series siblings? Its texture fill-rate is 3.6 billion texture elements per second - less than ten per cent of the number the 8800 Ultra can chuck out (39.2), and a third of the 8600 GTS' score (10.8), but identical to the 8500 GT.

Albatron didn't announce pricing, but the 8400GS is due any day now.