Loyal All-in-Wonder users from years past have probably been watching the progression of AMD's
revised version of the card with extreme interest. After such an absence, however, we understand the need to be cautious before snapping this up for your upcoming HTPC.
HotHardware recently received one of these units for testing, and while it was only deemed "entry level" in the gaming department, the multimedia performance was smiled upon. To quote, "the [card] did an excellent job presenting digital video content in a quality manner without creating excessive power consumption in order to do so." As expected, the unit wasn't recommend for everyone (read: non-TV buffs), but those who'd utilize the built-in ClearQAM support probably can't go wrong for $199. Hit the read link for a whole gaggle of test results.
posted Aug 19th 2008 8:41AM
ATI has a history of early discontinuing their products. I've bought this AiW X1900 just two years ago, at the same time Windows Vista was being released. Yet to date, no support for TV on Vista is provided. Recently they published a solution to this problem on their support page (if they call that a solution), stating that no TV capture driver will be provided for Vista, ever.
They are probably imagining that every owner of unsupported boards will rush to the shop and buy their latest AiW product. Not!
Now imagine you buying this board and very soon comes along Windows 7. Will they provide support, or just launch a new product? Go figure.
I used to be a fan of the AIW line. I have owned two of them and they have served me well. The AIW 8500dv (agp) is still going strong in my back-up PC, although I think the fan is finally dying. However, these cards are not nearly as compelling as they used to be. In the "old days" you had to conserve expansion slots. With the network card or maybe two, sound card, video card, random expansion card with the latest USB/firewire/SATA ports, there was not always room for a tuner. Now everything you need is integrated into the motherboard. Sticking the tuner on the video card only means that you have to upgrade both of them at the same time later on. No thank you.
I thing ATI is the best graphics cards manufacturer and it provide users with high quality image through its Radeon HD 3870 and 4800 series at low cost. Visit " http://inanotechnology.blogspot.com/2008/09/6-powerful-ati-radeon-hd-3870-graphics.html " to get more about these cards and " http://inanotechnology.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-choose-perfect-graphic-card.html " to know how to choose your card.