Hot on the heels of AMD’s decision to lift the press embargo on Radeon HD 4850 performance information, Nvidia has responded with a price cut and the launch of the GeForce 9800 GTX+, an overclocked version of the 9800 GTX that the company is touting as the best single card price / performance offering.

The new and improved 9800 GTX+ bumps both core and shader clock speeds – with the help of a more efficient 55nm process – from 675MHz to 738MHz and from 1,688MHz to 1,836MHz respectively. GDDR3 memory remains the same at 1000MHz. What’s more interesting, Nvidia announced a general price cut on 9800 GTX cards to $199 (down from $290), with the GTX+ to sell at $229 – just $30 above the recently launched Radeon HD 4850.

The graphics war is certainly heating up and new offerings accompanied by price cuts will be most welcomed by consumers, though I can imagine those who recently bought a 9800 GTX card will be very annoyed at the fact this new GTX+ card arrives out of the blue with a better performance and price.