Ray traced graphics?

[Windows i7 920]

My budget for a new graphics card is about $300. I've heard that Nvidia's cards are capable of ray traced games. What kind of graphics could I expect from a $300 Nvidia? Currently I have a Radeon HD 4890, and while it's a great card and all, I'd just like to push the graphics even harder.

 

[thefabe]

Had to do some researching on Ray Tracing Games. But from articles it would seem that the concept was started with the launch of the 4800 series Launch.
This one particular article refers to the shader power for the 5 series cards playing a lead role in the decision to create this technology. It's an older article but my suggestion would be for you to take sometime and do some researching on your own
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The first PC game. With Fusion Rendering Cloud and upcoming OTOY game streaming service, this experience will be available for everyone sometime in 2012
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World's first ray-traced PC game and movie to arrive in 2012 - Bright Side Of News*

PC game. With Fusion Rendering Cloud and upcoming OTOY game streaming service, this experience will - Google Search

Their is a lot of information out their to search through. The your answer looking for is very subjective pending on a lot of variables. It's an answer I don't know if anyone can tell you exactly what to expect but with all graphics driven questions it all depends on what game your looking to play.

I would suggest you look for the best DX11 card with the highest number of streaming processors.
Of course this answer comes form just the little bit of information I was able to read through in an hour or so.

I also read an article that Intel had demonstrated this process using 4 servers and and 1 "Knights Ferry" addin card. Although Intel doesn't call these graphic cards, they essentially are. At the "core" there are 32 cores clocked at 1.2ghz each, and a total capacity of 128 threads per card.
Hopefully someone else on here can provide us both with a more definitive answer.
Fabe

 

[stormy13]

Unless all you want to do is look at pretty demos, I wouldn't worry about any video ard and ray tracing at this point in time. By the time ray tracing is possible any cards of today will be nice paperweights at best.

Nvidia's Ray Tracing demo - Monitor & Video Cards

Intel Shows Off Ray Tracing Demo on Knights Ferry Accelerators - X-bit labs

Coding Horror: Real-Time Raytracing

 

[Everlong]

Ray tracing won't be around properly for quite a while yet. The best real-time ray tracing demo is Nvidia's design garage, which is best done with at least a GTX460 card. It's only capable of rendering in real time on average at roughly 1.5fps, but you get some very nice renders out of it.

Check this thread for quite a few renders me and other members have done http://www.sevenforums.com/chillout-room/84162-nvidia-design-garage-screenshots.html