Introduction

ALL-IN-WONDER: The swiss army knife of video cards

ATI’s ALL-IN-WONDER cards have earned (and we stress the word earned) a loyal following among consumers for their extraordinary combination of features, ease of use, flexibility, and performance. Need a video card for editing home movies? That’s no problem for ATI ALL-IN-WONDER. How about a card for watching and recording your favorite television shows? The ALL-IN-WONDER can do that too, and it can be programmed to record television programming for an entire season. And thanks to the power of its RADEON graphics core, ATI’s high-end ALL-IN-WONDER line has more than enough horsepower to tackle all of today’s latest games.

Both the industry and consumers have recognized this, as ATI has racked in numerous awards and sales. The ALL-IN-WONDER line has been running strong for nearly a decade now and shows no signs of letting up anytime soon. In fact, ATI continues to find ways to innovate its multimedia marvel; the ALL-IN-WONDER 9600 PRO is a perfect example of this.

ATI's DX9 ALL-IN-WONDER cards

Sizes are similar

And now, the AIW 9600 PRO versus RADEON 9600 PRO

Product segmentation

The ALL-IN-WONDER 9600 PRO was built to address the needs of the mainstream market. If you look at ATI’s multimedia lineup before the ALL-IN-WONDER 9600 PRO, ATI had the ALL-IN-WONDER VE for the value/integrated markets. This card is based on a derivative of ATI’s RADEON 7500 VPU with 64MB of memory and is officially priced at $129. To help keep costs down, the ALL-IN-WONDER VE shipped without the REMOTE WONDER remote control unit; which is a $49 accessory. For those who needed a little more power, ATI offers the ALL-IN-WONDER 9000 PRO. Its RADEON 9000 PRO core brings DirectX 8 capability to the table, as well as added performance and REMOTE WONDER. At the same time, the price tag is still affordable at $169.

Just above the ALL-IN-WONDER 9000 PRO is the ALL-IN-WONDER 9800 PRO. This card is ATI’s flagship and retails for $450 (ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 cards be still be found online for just under $300, but these cards are quickly becoming harder to find).

With two cards serving the value segment (albeit in different ways) and one card at the high-end, this left a gaping hole in the middle that ATI hadn’t addressed. The ALL-IN-WONDER 8500 used to serve this demographic, but it was replaced by the ALL-IN-WONDER 9000 PRO. ATI needed an answer and it wasn’t going to find it in the RADEON 9500. As it’s essentially a derivative of the RADEON 9700’s R300 core, it was too expensive to produce for the mainstream segment -- ATI would essentially be giving away cores that could be used in $300+ RADEON 9700 cards.

The RADEON 9500’s successor, RADEON 9600, however was cheaper to produce and, as an added bonus, consumed less power, therefore it generated less heat. This made it the perfect choice for ATI’s multimedia team, as the added board components the ALL-IN-WONDER line requires add to the heat generated by the board. When we originally previewed this card in August, quite a few of you were intrigued. Lets take a closer look at what makes this card so special.