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ATI ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL Review November 21, 2005 |
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Summary: With ATI's X1800 XL VPU at its core, the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL can do it all. Whether it's gaming, watching TV, or recording tonight's Monday Night football game, the AIW X1800 XL is up to the task. See what's new with ATI's latest multimedia marvel in today's review!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 15 ) |
Since their introduction way back in 1996, ATI’s ALL-IN-WONDER series has wowed the computing world with their unique ability to combine multiple uses into one graphics card. Need a video card for video capture/editing so you can fine-tune your home movies? ATI’s ALL-IN-WONDER cards can do that. How about watching TV or DVD movies on your PC? ATI’s ALL-IN-WONDER series can do that too.In fact, they can do much more than that, with the Multimedia Center software that ships with every ALL-IN-WONDER card you can not only watch television programming on your PC, you can record it to your PC too. In fact, the ALL-IN-WONDER can even be programmed to automatically record your favorite television shows while you’re away from your desk at work or at play; you can even use the ALL-IN-WONDER to pause live TV (timeshift), just like a TiVo. This allows you to talk on the phone while your PC records the television show you were watching. Once you’re off the phone, you can pick up right where you left off, fast-forward through all the commercials, or even skip right back to the live broadcast. Meanwhile, with the ALL-IN-WONDER’s GUIDE PLUS software, you’ve got a pretty good electronic programming guide that can not only tell you what’s on, you can also use it to search for specific television shows or actors.
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Basically, with ATI’s ALL-IN-WONDER, you can combine the functionality of your home theater system’s DVD and CD players, VCR, and TiVo all into one device. And thanks to the ALL-IN-WONDER’s built in FM tuner, you can even listen to the radio on your PC. When you combine this with the built-in 3D capabilities found in the graphics core, you’ve got an excellent platform for gaming as well.
In a nutshell, that’s the premise behind ATI’s ALL-IN-WONDER series, and it’s a formula they’ve executed brilliantly. Over the years competitors have come and gone in an attempt to dethrone the ALL-IN-WONDER. This list includes 3dfx with their Voodoo3 3500 TV, Matrox’s Marvel G400-TV, and more recently, NVIDIA tried but failed with their Personal Cinema line, which was canned 1.5 years ago. If you browse through the FS Hardware page, you’ll see that we’ve reviewed all these competitors, but none have been successful for one reason or another.
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Now ATI is back with another ALL-IN-WONDER card, the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL. As its name suggests, this board is based on ATI’s recently launched X1800 XL graphics core, and it looks like another winner. Let’s take a look at the card shall we?
| Specifications | Page:: ( 2 / 15 ) |
Basically, ATI’s made no compromises on the graphics front.
If you recall, R520 is ATI’s first shader model 3.0 part, which brings with it support for more instructions, thus allowing developers to write more complex shader programs. In addition to this, another important feature that shader model 3.0 added was dynamic branching (flow control), allowing developers to add loops to their programs. Dynamic branching was designed to make writing shaders easier for developers. With it, game developers can associate one shader to perform multiple functions. Say for instance adding multiple lights to an environment. Rather than having to write a shader for each light, with dynamic branching the developer can write one light shader which then loops through a certain number of vertex lights and exits once all the lights have been processed.
Besides eased development, shader model 3.0 also presents potential performance improvements. For example, developers can use dynamic branching to skip large portions of code that are determined to be unnecessary, and thus help to speed up the shader. ATI has introduced a number of new features to enhance branching performance. The most notable of these new features includes dedicated flow control logic for handling dynamic branching. Another new feature that has been talked about lately is the X1800 programmable memory controller. This feature in particular was responsible for the huge performance gains we saw in Quake 4 last month.
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With the same R520 chip that’s found in the X1800 XL also powering the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL, the card boasts all the same innovations and features ATI introduced with the X1800 XL a month ago, including AVIVO. This means that the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL boasts the same 3D capabilities as its desktop cousin, making it a capable performer in games. In our tests with the RADEON X1800 XL in the past we’ve found that it competes closely with NVIDIA’s GeForce 7800 GT in performance, with each card winning their fair share of benchmarks. The ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL merely adds the additional multimedia capabilities we mentioned previously.
Before we begin to discuss these multimedia features in more depth though, let’s go over ATI’s lineup for the holidays.
ATI’s Multimedia Lineup
The ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL is the new flagship of ATI’s ALL-IN-WONDER lineup. According to ATI, the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL is in full production, with boards shipping to retail as we write this. In fact we can speak from personal experience that ATI has delayed the official introduction of the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL by several weeks in order to ensure a hard launch for the card (the board was originally scheduled for launch on November 7th, then the 15th, and now the 21st). Officially, the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL carries an MSRP of $500, that’s a $50 price premium over the official MSRP of the X1800 XL, which is $450. When you consider the extra features ATI provides with the ALL-IN-WONDER, such as the FM and TV tuning capabilities, REMOTE WONDER PLUS remote control unit (which alone sells for $49 on shop.ati.com), VIVO, and additional software (which includes a copy of Photoshop Elements), this $50 premium is a pretty trivial amount.
Just below the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL lies the ALL-IN-WONDER X800 XL (PCI-E) and ALL-IN-WONDER X800 XT (AGP), which both carry a pricetag of $400. For the mainstream market, ATI then provides the ALL-IN-WONDER 2006 (AGP) and ALL-IN-WONDER X600 PRO, both of these boards officially carry an MSRP of $200.
ATI’s TV WONDER series enters the holidays unchanged, with the TV WONDER ELITE and HDTV WONDER selling for $150 while the TV WONDER USB 2.0 and TV WONDER PRO Remote Control Edition retail for $100 and the TV WONDER PRO selling for $70.
| Video hardware | Page:: ( 3 / 15 ) |
New silicon tuner
The ALL-IN-WONDER X800 XT was the first AIW card ATI announced to use a new silicon tuner from Microtune, the MT2050. The MT2050 contained fewer parts, making it considerably smaller than its predecessor and allowing it to consume less power and thus generate less heat. But the only downside to the MT2050 was that it wasn’t as responsive as the Philips TV tuner ATI had used on previous ALL-IN-WONDER products. Changing channels took 1-2 seconds to complete with MT2050, whereas the previous tuners could switch channels in the blink of an eye. Fortunately ATI has addressed this issue, replacing Microtune’s MT2050 tuner with the MT2121 for the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL.
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The new MT2121 tuner is silicon-based just like its predecessor, so it boasts all the space and power savings mentioned previously, only with slightly better channel response time. Flipping through channels is better with this new tuner, but still not up to par with the Philips tuners ATI has used in the past.
THEATER 200
First launched with the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO four years ago, the THEATER 200 chip is now a staple of ATI’s WONDER products, and is the backbone of the AIW X1800 XL’s multimedia capability. The THEATER 200 chip receives the signals from the Microtune tuner chip, where it is then passed through one of the THEATER 200’s two 12-bit analog-to-digital converters (many competing solutions use 9-bit ADCs). From the ADC, the signal is passed to the THEATER 200’s 2D 3-line comb filter, through the video scaler, and ultimately passed on to your monitor. The chip also handles all audio duties, performing audio demodulation and stereo decoding.
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THEATER 200 doesn’t boast all the capabilities found in ATI’s latest THEATER product, THEATER 550 PRO, such as the hardware-based MPEG-2 encoding and the 550’s new 3D comb filter, but it’s still a pretty capable part. In our THEATER 550 PRO roundup earlier this year, we judged that the THEATER 550 PRO cards looked better, but if you click back through the screenshots you’ll see that the difference in image quality between the THEATER 550 PRO and THEATER 200 isn’t huge. In other words, THEATER 200 still looks good even though it isn’t as advanced as the THEATER 550 PRO.
| Board analysis | Page:: ( 4 / 15 ) |
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While the new silicon tuner is considerably smaller than previous Philips tuners ATI has used in the past, it still takes up a considerable amount of room on the AIW X1800 XL’s PCB. In order to make room for the new tuner, ATI had to design a completely new PCB, which is much larger than the X1800 XL’s. In fact, it’s even bigger than the X1800 XT 512MB!
Measuring just shy of 10 inches long, the new ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL’s PCB is the longest we’ve ever seen on a graphics card, and may have a hard time fitting inside some small form factor systems. The PCB itself is a very dark shade of purple, nearly black actually, while the TV tuner is decked out with a gold-plated tuner can, with the MT2121 chip underneath. Immediately to the left of the tuner can lies connections for TV and FM tuning, while ATI’s proprietary I/O connector sits just beneath that. Finally, the board is finished off with a DVI connector, which can be used for hooking the card up to a LCD panel.
It’s ATI’s unique I/O connector that you’ll probably be most interested in. With this connection, ATI provides dual display capability (with the second display output being VGA only) as well as video input and output capabilities; this includes the ability to output to a conventional TV or even an HDTV. To accomplish these tasks, ATI provides external video dongles. These dongles look just like dominoes and can be stacked on top of each other just like Legos to help save space.
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Inside the AIW X1800 XL’s packaging you’ll find three dongles. The input dongle provides 1 S-Video connection, 1 composite, and 2 RCA stereo audio connections, while the output connection dongle features 1 S/PDIF, 1 S-Video, 1 composite, and 2 RCA stereo audio connections. Arrows on the edge of the dongle help to distinguish the video input dongle from the video output dongle. The third dongle has the component video connections you’ll need for hooking the AIW X1800 XL card up to an HDTV.
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Hooking everything up sounds complicated, but it’s actually fairly easy. Just plug in the card like you would normally, then hookup the I/O connector we mentioned previously. From here you’ll want to hookup the appropriate input/output dongles as well as your second VGA display. Finally, plug in the coaxial connections for FM and TV tuning (an FM antenna is provide inside the box), as well as the pass through cable for audio.
Once that’s done, boot up the computer, load all drivers and software programs included on the CATALYST CD, reboot, and you’re all done! The whole process shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes from beginning to end (depending on the speed of your computer), once you’re done, ATI’s TV tuner software will automatically scan for all your available channels, while Gemstar’s GUIDE PLUS software will download local TV listings for your area.
| REMOTE WONDER PLUS | Page:: ( 5 / 15 ) |
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Since the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL is designed for use as a home theater device (among other things), it makes sense that you’d want to control it from the comfort of your couch without having to deal with messy input devices like keyboards and mice every time you wanted to record your favorite program or watch a little TV. This is where the REMOTE WONDER PLUS comes in.
Like previous ATI remote control units, REMOTE WONDER PLUS is RF-based; you don’t need line-of-sight to manipulate the remote like you do on your TV’s IR-based remote. This comes in handy when using the remote at awkward angles, as the RF signal the REMOTE WONDER PLUS provides can literally pass through walls and boasts a range of up to 60 feet!
The remote control unit itself merges the superior tactile feedback found in REMOTE WONDER II in a package that’s small, just like the original REMOTE WONDER. In fact, REMOTE WONDER PLUS is thinner than any previous ATI remote, measuring only 0.75” thick, roughly 25% thinner than REMOTE WONDER II. In addition to being thinner, REMOTE WONDER PLUS is also shorter than its predecessors at 7.5” tall. Because of these smaller dimensions, REMOTE WONDER PLUS fits more naturally in your hand, making it feel more like a high-end remote like you’d find on a TV. ATI last remote control unit, REMOTE WONDER II, was criticized for being too bulky (REMOTE WONDER PLUS’ USB receiver is also considerably smaller than REMOTE WONDER II’s).
But a smaller chassis isn’t REMOTE WONDER PLUS’ only distinguishing feature, as ATI has also taken the time to redesign the remote’s layout. One example are the programmable buttons C, D, E, and F, which are now located further away from the playback and recording buttons on REMOTE WONDER PLUS. For instance on REMOTE WONDER II it was easy to mistake the rewind button for the programmable F button.
All six buttons can be easily programmed to perform practically any function you want, including handling basic Windows tasks such as closing an application, or for TV viewing, going back to the channel you just flipped from.
Sadly, REMOTE WONDER II’s four backlit auxiliary buttons are removed, but REMOTE WONDER PLUS still retains the improved thumbpad for mouse control: the thumbpad on the original REMOTE WONDER was incredibly mushy.
ATI’s remote control units are highly regarded throughout the industry for their ease of use and performance. Quite simply, ATI provides the best remotes on the market. ATI’s REMOTE WONDER PLUS continues that tradition.
Other accessories
In addition to the aforementioned hardware accessories, ATI also provides batteries for the REMOTE WONDER PLUS remote control unit, and S-Video and composite video cables for the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL, although surprisingly the board doesn’t ship with a DVI-to-VGA adapter. Software bundled with the card includes a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Premiere Elements, and of course, the Multimedia Center software, which acts as the hub for all of the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL’s many multimedia functions. But more on that later.
| TV viewing | Page:: ( 6 / 15 ) |
The TV player can perform all the standard functions you normally associate with a TV, including the ability to preview all television stations. This feature is known as channel surf and with it you can browse through multiple television channels simultaneously at the click of a button. A number of thumbnails are presented, each representing a different channel; these thumbnails take snapshots of each station, and are updated regularly. To select a channel, simply click it to appear in your display.
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The TV player can also do some really cool things, such as THRUVIEW, which can translucently display the television program you’re currently watching as your Windows desktop. You can then work on a Word document while the TV literally sits underneath your work. The level of transparency can be adjusted to suit your eyes.
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Another feature the TV player supports is mulTView. With this feature, you can combine the TV tuner found in the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL with a second TV tuner, allowing you to record television programming on one channel, while watching another, or you can use mulTView to watch two distinct stations at once for picture-in-picture support. All you have to do is drop in a second compatible TV tuner card, like ATI’s TV WONDER PRO or TV WONDER ELITE.
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Another feature the TV player supports is the TV Bar. With TV Bar, you can surf the web and watch TV at the same time. Just open up Internet Explorer, click the TV icon, and voila, a window will appear on the side of your browser with the current channel you’re watching as well as a program guide with channel listings and programming information just below it.
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Closed caption support
Another interesting feature the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL’s Multimedia Center software supports is closed caption support. With it, you can use the closed captions found in all television programming to search for certain words or phrases.
For example, if you were watching Sportscenter on ESPN and you wanted to skip straight to the latest Terrell Owens update, type “Terrell Owens” in the hot words search menu and Multimedia Center will then use the closed caption text to search for any time the word Terrell Owens was used during the program.
This feature can also be used for live broadcasts. When the hot word appears, you can have the computer play a sound, restore to the TV, or launch the personal video recorder. Just enable hot words and then go back to the software application you were working on, when your hot word comes up, the TV player opens.
| Gemstar GUIDE Plus | Page:: ( 7 / 15 ) |
With so much television to watch, it’s important to have a programming guide that will not only tell you what’s currently on TV, but also what will be coming on in the future. This is where Gemstar’s GUIDE Plus software comes in.
Once you’ve got GUIDE Plus setup (which takes all of one minute), the software will download one week’s worth of TV listings for your area or cable service. Then, you simply scroll through the channel listings to see what’s on TV. Like the electronic programming guide your satellite/digital cable receiver provides, GUIDE Plus gives detailed information for each listing, including a brief description of the program as well as the actors and run time.
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The GUIDE Plus interface can also be used to schedule recordings. Say for instance, you want to record Monday Night Football. With GUIDE Plus, not only can you record the game for that week, GUIDE Plus can also automatically record all broadcasts of Monday Night Football for the entire season. This is a great feature to have if you happen to miss a broadcast due to an emergency (or forgetfulness)
All of these recordings are saved to your hard drive based on quality settings you define. For instance, if you want to conserve disk space, you can adjust your recording options so the audio and/or video quality isn’t quite so high. Or, on the other hand if you want the highest quality videos, you can do that as well.
ATI provides several recording presets, or you can customize the recording options if you want to tailor your recordings to your specific needs/taste. All the major file types are supported: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, AVI, Windows Media, and ATI’s own proprietary VCR format.
Another feature that really makes GUIDE Plus so powerful is its advanced filtering and search options. Just like a TiVo, you can search for programming based on title, actor, category, or date. For ease of use, you can save these to your favorites search list.
The really sweet part about GUIDE Plus though is that unlike TiVo, it is completely free. There are no monthly fees you have to pay, and no hidden surcharges or anything like that. Just load up the software and you can start watching TV on your schedule.
TV-ON-DEMAND
The ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL also has built-in support for timeshifting, which allows end users to pause live TV, then rewind or fast forward through the broadcast, just like a TiVo. ATI refers to this feature as TV-ON-DEMAND.
This feature is integrated effortlessly into the REMOTE WONDER PLUS remote control unit, simply press the record button and step away for a few hours. Once you get back, you can watch the portion you missed, or fast-forward to skip to another section of the programming. If you wish to jump straight to the live broadcast you can do that as well. All major file types are supported, including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, AVI, Windows Media, and ATI’s own proprietary VCR format. You simply predefine the recording settings you’d like (a number of recording presets are available), and Multimedia Center does the rest. Timeshifting is also supported by the FM tuner as well, if there’s a show on the radio you’d like to record. The radio player itself supports up to 10 radio station presets. The FM player also comes with built-in alarm and sleep settings, just like your standard alarm clock in your bedroom.
| Test Systems | Page:: ( 8 / 15 ) |
System Setup
AMD Athlon 64 FX-57
ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe
2GB OCZ DDR400 SDRAM
ATI ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL 256MB
ATI RADEON X1800 XL 256MB
CATALYST 5.11
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT 256MB
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 256MB
Driver version ForceWare 81.94
250GB Maxtor Hard Drive Maxline III SATA Hard Drive w/16MB Cache
Windows XP Professional SP1
DirectX 9.0c
Benchmarks
Call of Duty 2
Half-Life 2
F.E.A.R.
Battlefield 2
Quake 4
| Half-Life 2 4xAA/16xAF | Page:: ( 9 / 15 ) |
Half-Life 2 – Direct3D
| Battlefield 2 | Page:: ( 10 / 15 ) |
Battlefield 2 – Direct3D
| Quake 4 | Page:: ( 11 / 15 ) |
Quake 4 – OpenGL
| F.E.A.R. Performance | Page:: ( 12 / 15 ) |
F.E.A.R. – Direct3D
| Call of Duty 2 | Page:: ( 13 / 15 ) |
Call of Duty 2 – Direct3D
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 14 / 15 ) |
Pros
3D Performance: With ATI’s RADEON X1800 XL graphics core powering the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL, it goes without saying that the card is one terrific performer. ATI’s multimedia team makes no compromises, running the board at the full specs of the desktop X1800 XL: 500MHz on the core and 500MHz for the board’s 256MB of GDDR3 memory.
With all this horsepower under the hood, the card is up to the task of running at high screen resolutions with AA/AF, while all the eye candy settings can be turned on. Basically, with the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL, you can experience those fancy screenshots you see on the back of the box on your personal PC without your frame rate running like a slideshow.
In addition, the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL also supports shader model 3.0, making it ready for all of today’s latest games.
Multimedia Center software: ATI’s Multimedia Center software acts as the hub for the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL’s multimedia functionality. From here you can launch all of the audio and video players, as well as watch TV, check out what’s on (via Gemstar GUIDE Plus), search through your audio/video archive, and more.
Thanks to Multimedia Center, everything you need to control the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL is just one click away. This makes things quick and easy for the end user.
REMOTE WONDER PLUS: Couch potatoes will love ATI’s new REMOTE WONDER PLUS remote control unit. The new remote is considerably slimmer than previous ATI remotes and features an improved thumbpad that provides more tactile feedback for more precise mouse control. The layout has also been improved, making the new remote easier to use. In addition REMOTE WONDER PLUS features six programmable buttons that can be programmed to perform practically any function you wish, including many common Windows tasks such as closing windows. ATI has also integrated many common Multimedia Center applications into the REMOTE WONDER PLUS remote control unit, with buttons for the GUIDE Plus software, DVD player, and TV/FM tuning.
Value: With an MSRP of $500 you may think we’re a little insane to suggest that the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL is a good value, but here us out for a second.
For starters, remember that officially the desktop RADEON X1800 XL carries an MSRP of $450, that’s only $50 less than the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL. That extra $50 buys you a lot of goodies.
First you’ve got the TV and FM tuning capabilities that the Microtune MT2121 tuner provides. Some would say this feature alone is worth $50, especially if you plan on spending lots of time watching TV on your PC (say for instance, in a dorm room environment where space is at a premium). Next, you’ve got the REMOTE WONDER PLUS remote control unit. This feature alone is worth $50. A quick check of ATI’s shop.ati.com website reveals that the REMOTE WONDER PLUS is currently selling for $49. Next, you’ve got the video dongles ATI includes with the AIW X1800 XL. These sell for $20 apiece on ATI’s website, making them a $60 value.
And don’t forget the software. ATI includes two Adobe programs with the AIW X1800 XL. Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements.
When you add all this up, that $50 price premium begins to look like a bargain pretty quickly.
Dual display: The ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL is the fourth AIW card to boast DVI and VGA capabilities. Previous ALL-IN-WONDER offerings provided only one DVI connection, or at best, dual VGA in the case of the AIW 9600 family. The addition of DVI support makes the AIW X1800 XL more attractive to flat panel users.
Cons
Size: Unfortunately, in order to integrate the TV tuner and all the other functions that the AIW X1800 XL supports ATI had to use a very long PCB. Those of you with smaller cases (especially SFF users) may have a hard time getting this board to fit within your case.
THEATER 200?: While ATI’s THEATER 200 chip delivers good image quality, its feature set is quickly becoming dated. The chip doesn’t provide MPEG-2 encoding, nor does it support the 3D and 5-Line 2D comb filters found in ATI’s newer THEATER 550 PRO ASIC. Honestly we were a bit surprised when ATI first introduced us to the AIW X1800 XL that the board didn’t include THEATER 550 PRO. After all, it has been out nearly a year now.
Hopefully this is the last ALL-IN-WONDER product ATI ships with THEATER 200 onboard.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 15 / 15 ) |
FiringSquad says:
The ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL merges many of the best innovations found in ATI’s newer ALL-IN-WONDER cards with the recently released X1800 XL VPU. The most notable of these are the new domino-style dongles, which provide all the input/output connections any enthusiast would want, including HDTV output. The dongles can even be stacked on top of each other to save space on your desk. The other new features that the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL has adopted are the REMOTE WONDER PLUS remote control unit and the DVI and VGA outputs ATI provides on the board.
And of course, you can’t forget the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL’s multimedia capabilities. Thanks to its new Microtune 2121 tuner the card can receive both FM and TV signals, transforming your clunky old PC into a fully-fledged digital entertainment device. ATI’s Multimedia Center software includes a powerful, yet easy to use electronic programming guide as well as built-in timeshifting and scheduling capabilities, giving you TiVo-like features without all the fees. And when you’re done watching TV on your PC you can boot up a game like Call of Duty 2 or Quake 4 and get your game on. In fact, you can be recording all of your favorite television shows while you’re getting your game on!
The only real negative that we can aim at the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL is its use of the venerable THEATER 200 ASIC. Thanks to its 12-bit ADCs, THEATER 200 is capable of dishing out very good audio/video image quality, but its feature set isn’t nearly as extensive as THEATER 550 PRO, which not only ships with better comb filters, it also supports MPEG-2 encoding and digital audio processing. This feature in particular allows the THEATER 550 PRO to communicate with the sound card internally. A loop-back cable isn’t necessary.
For such a high-end card we were expecting the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL to ship with THEATER 550 PRO but it appears if you want the best possible image quality from ATI, you’ll have to continue to rely on the TV WONDER ELITE. We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again, hopefully this is the last ALL-IN-WONDER product ATI ships with THEATER 200 onboard. At least for the high-end crowd.
Other than this, ATI got everything right with the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL. The board’s got all the multimedia capabilities most of you will ever need, while the card’s X1800 XL VPU is an excellent performer. Finally, the fact that all this can be had for just $50 bucks more than the regular X1800 XL should have many of you debating which of the two cards would be the better purchase. In our opinion, you clearly you get more for your money with the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL. Congratulations on another job well done ATI.