Trying to see if its worth it to upgrade

[chaos]

Hope this isn't a stupid question. When decent games that are DX10 come out, will the dx9 cards not be able to run them or just not with all the eye candy???I'm looking at this card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127287
has dx10 and fanless, but don't think it will run FEAR very well at higher settings..
Also this card: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260145258074&ih=016&category=40161&ssPageName=:IT
its overclocked ,has 512mb ram, and will run games like FEAR w/o any problem, but its not dx10..I'm leaning toward the 7950gt oc cause for $206 shipped is a very good price, I've seen regular clocked ones with 256mb ram for $229. Its going into a HTPC(probably should have put the post there,) And I've read reviews about the Foxconn 7950gt that it uses a MUCH quieter fan than the reference ones..

 

[Kap]

Considering the substantial investment that it takes to put out a quality game these days, I strongly doubt that any developer would limit their potential customer base to only DirectX10 users. (Microsoft might be the only exception, since they'd be more than happy for you to give them more money to "upgrade" to Vista just to play a game. In fact, they did intend to have "Vista-only" games, but as you can see here, they've already been cracked, and didn't even require DirectX10).

DirectX10 does add the potential for a lot more eye candy, but remember that most developers are targeting the mass market and aim for the lowest common denominator, so I'd bet that you'll see the majority of new games run happily on DirectX9 for quite some time. Also, keep in mind that the 8600 series is not particularly fast, so it may allow you to turn on that eye candy, but won't run it especially well, and by the time the decent DirectX10 games come out, that card will be an absolute dog.

This, of course, is just personal opinion, but I hope it helps.