If you're in the market for a mid-range graphics card (or just enjoy staying on top of the latest happenings in the hardware scene) you're probably aware of the most recent releases from both ATI and Nvidia. The battle between the graphics card manufacturers reached a tense moment yesterday when ATI pushed ahead the release of its Radeon HD 4850 card by more than a week, while Nvidia fired back with a speedier yet cheaper version of the GeForce 9800 GTX on a smaller manufacturing process, the 9800 GTX+.

The Radeon HD 4850 and GeForce 9800 GTX+ cards are priced at $199 and $229 respectively and target the mainstream segment of the gamer market. Though Nvidia's new 55nm card won't hit retail shelves until mid-July, the folks over at PC Perspective have managed to get their hands on one of these babies and pitted it against AMD's brand new Radeon HD 4850. Early test results show the GeForce 9800 GTX+ edging out the Radeon HD 4850 by a good margin in almost every single benchmark, though ATI has the advantage of their card being 10-15% cheaper and available a few weeks earlier. Check out PC Perspective for all the graphs and screen captures.