Firing Squad tests Nvidia's latest card against HD 4850. The card is made and dispatched in such a hurry that it lacks even a single sticker on its body. See in its nude glory


The card wins most of the benches but not by much. And it does not help that most of the games nowadays favour Nvidia hardware so one can easily cherry pick titles to benchmaks.
Also, to me the Firing Squads figures seemed a little dubious. Based on what i have seen at Guru3D, TechReport, TechPowerUp and Anand Tech their figures 4850 seemed a little low.
But, good thing for consumers is that The War has just begin. 9800GTX is down to $199 and MSI's HD 4850 is already selling for $175 at Newegg if we count mail-in-rebate.
From Firing Squad:
Radeon HD 4850 512MB and GeForce 9800 GTX+ Performance Quick Take


The card wins most of the benches but not by much. And it does not help that most of the games nowadays favour Nvidia hardware so one can easily cherry pick titles to benchmaks.
Also, to me the Firing Squads figures seemed a little dubious. Based on what i have seen at Guru3D, TechReport, TechPowerUp and Anand Tech their figures 4850 seemed a little low.
But, good thing for consumers is that The War has just begin. 9800GTX is down to $199 and MSI's HD 4850 is already selling for $175 at Newegg if we count mail-in-rebate.
From Firing Squad:
Clearly the moral of this story if you’re AMD is to keep your plans quiet. If AMD had done a better job of keeping the details on RV770 under wraps, NVIDIA wouldn’t have had the opportunity to spoil their big launch. NVIDIA’s lesson learned is to not underestimate AMD. We along with everyone else in the online media were extremely disappointed by the original 9800 GTX launch: the card offered little over the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB, much less an 8800 GTX or 8800 Ultra. The GeForce 9800 GTX+ is what the original 9800 GTX should have been in our opinion. The 9800 GTX runs about 8 or 9% faster than the 9800 GTX, which still isn’t always enough to overtake the 8800 Ultra, but it’s definitely an improvement. The disappointing part about the 9800 GTX+ is that these cards won’t hit shelves until sometime in July.
The Radeon 4850 will hit retail as soon as June 25th, giving it a few weeks head start over the GTX+. And we don’t know when NVIDIA’s new pricing will take effect. A quick glance at Newegg right now reveals that 9800 GTX boards are still selling for well over $199.
Radeon HD 4850 512MB and GeForce 9800 GTX+ Performance Quick Take