AMD Radeon HD 3830 to compete with NVIDIA 8600GTS
 

To better compete with NVIDIA's GeForce 8600GTS while looking at a price to performance ratio, AMD will launch a new model in the HD 3800 series with a more modest configuration than its two older counterparts.

AMD's Radeon HD 3830 will be based on the RV670 core and will feature a 128-bit memory bus, potentially providing roughly half the memory bandwidth of the HD 3850 and 3870 depending on the type and speed of memory used.

http://www.dailytech.com/AMD+Preps+R...ticle11189.htm

was there a point in time where the 8600GTS could be considered a smart buy? I never thought of that card as offering good performance for acceptable money.

It was not much faster than 8600GT, but reasonably more expensive. Or as one once put it: You got 40% of performance of 8800GTS(320Mb) for 60% of the price.

Now with 9600 GT in the picture, I don't know who would consider this 8600GTS?

Looking at large online shops... 8600GTS is mostly available between €140~150. (on backorder only!)

Cheapest 9600 GT in those same shops are ~€150
( http://alternate.be/html/productDeta...l?artno=JBXYJ1 )

conclusion? 8600GTS is dead. phased out. AMD should not introduce a card in competition to a none-exisiting product. They already have the 3400 series to compete with 8500 and 3600 to compete with 8600 (GT). Why spend money on PR/packaging/etc for a product which doesn't really fit in anywhere...

They have crippled cores and they don't know what to do with it? :D

Then the 3400/3600 would be better served, no?

HD3650? Different core. This is RV670, the high-end AMD video processor, the 128-bit bus ain't that great but with lower GPU performance it should not be a bottleneck. It may overclock great, but then the memory bus width may become a problem. Lower priced as the 3850, maybe around 100€, I think this product could have a high performance/price ratio.