 | |||
|
|
|
|
|
 |
ATI ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO Review December 16, 2002 Brandon Bell |
|
 |
|
| |
Summary: Based on the RADEON 9700 PRO VPU, ATI's ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO is a multimedia powerhouse. With a built-in stereo TV tuner, the AIW 9700 PRO supports up to 125 television stations, and with Gemstar GUIDE Plus+, you can record your favorite programs, just like a Tivo. And finally, with REMOTE WONDER you can control it all from your couch! See how this card performs in our review!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 19 ) |
ATI's RADEON 9700 PRO: Turning Heads
Since its launch earlier this year, ATI RADEON 9700 PRO has been doing nothing but turning heads. The card earned our Editor’s Choice Award; numerous other publications have also praised the 9700 PRO. Why is everyone in such awe of this $400 graphics card? Quite simply, because it’s one of the most revolutionary product releases in recent memory.Its floating-point pipeline allows the VPU to perform all kinds of complicated math that wasn’t possible with integer-based graphics cores, allowing for increased precision. And with its 128-bit color support, the RADEON 9700 PRO is capable of outputting images with vibrant color ranges, resulting in incredibly photo-realistic images. Graphics card manufacturers have been boasting on the convergence of the film industry to real-time graphics on the PC relentlessly since DirectX 8 was released, the RADEON 9700 PRO takes the PC one step closer to making that happen.
DirectX 9 pixel and vertex shaders are more powerful than their predecessors; the number of textures supported and the maximum number of instructions themselves are dramatically increased over DirectX 8 shaders. The new shaders are also easier for content developers to work with. Instead of writing multiple shaders to produce a desired result (a common example being multiple layers of hair or fur), the same task can be accomplished writing one simple shader that is then repeated to create the final effect.
Of course, DirectX 9 games that support these features are still many months away from release. With this in mind the RADEON 9700 PRO has been designed to bring new levels of 3D performance to the PC. Its eight-pixel pipeline architecture is paired with a 325MHz core, resulting in a fill-rate of 2.6 Gigapixels/second, twice that of NVIDIA’s GeForce4 Ti 4600. Its anti-aliased fill-rate is even more powerful; at 15.6 billion AA/samples/second it offers three times the performance of anything else on the market.
To make a long story short, the RADEON 9700 PRO VPU brings new levels of performance to the PC desktop. On top of this incredible performance is its equally compelling visual quality. ATI’s anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing implementations go one step beyond NVIDIA’s for even sharper detail.
With ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO, ATI fuses this powerful graphics core to a multimedia engine that is just as powerful. ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO boasts a stereo TV tuner, an all-new THEATER 200 for even better audio/video quality, and a powerful software suite for video editing as well as recording your favorite TV programs.
SIDEBAR: ATI ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO Product Webpage
| Specifications | Page:: ( 2 / 19 ) |
RADEON 9700 PRO Visual Processing Unit
THEATER 200
Stereo TV tuner with 125 channels
TV-ON-DEMAND timeshifting
MulTView
VideoSoap
THRUVIEW
Gemstar GUIDE Plus+
Radio frequency remote control
Multimedia Center 8.0
Video capture and editing including VideoCD and DVD authoring
Component video output via a YprPb adapter (available in North America only)
NTSC/PAL + Secam
3-year limited warranty
Notes
In our preview article we weren’t able to give you final clock speeds for the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO, only that ATI was shooting for clock frequencies as close to stock RADEON 9700 PRO speeds as possible. Fortunately we can report to you that ATI has been able to hit this target right on the mark, as the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO sports the same 325MHz core/310MHz memory combination as the RADEON 9700 PRO. Therefore, you’ll get the same blistering performance of the RADEON 9700 PRO in the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO.Inside the packaging itself is quite a bundle. You’ve got the obligatory DVI-to-VGA adapter that has become a standard accessory on most graphics cards as well as composite and S-Video cables, the power cable adapter, a YPrPb HDTV component video adapter (North America only), ATI’s REMOTE WONDER remote control unit and adapter (with batteries) and a video input module. On the software front, ATI includes a copy of Pinnacle Studio 8, Matchware Mediator 7, and Morrowind: The Elder Scrolls III.
SIDEBAR: ATI offered a limited bundle of ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO cards with the TV Wonder included at no additional cost directly on its website. As you can expect, those bundles went quickly and are now sold out.
| Design/THEATER 200/REMOTE WONDER | Page:: ( 3 / 19 ) |
[image]
| <% print_image("01"); %> | <% print_image("02"); %> |
New board design
In order to accommodate the TV tuner, several changes had to be made to the board design of the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO. For instance, power circuitry that was once located in the upper left corner of the board is now dispersed lower. The heatsink has been redesigned to allow room for the TV tuner and power circuitry, while at the same time still dissipating heat effectively off the R300 core. And finally, the THEATER 200 chip is placed on the back of the video card.
THEATER 200
ATI has replaced its venerable Rage Theater chip with THEATER 200 for ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO. The new chip brings increased audio and video quality over its predecessor, which is pretty impressive considering that Rage Theater was already well equipped in comparison to its competition.
To improve visual quality, ATI has employed its third generation comb filter, an adaptive 2D 3-Line Comb Filter. This new comb filter allows the THEATER 200 chip to more accurately process composite video signals, allowing for a better picture. Competing solutions utilize 2 lines for NTSC.
For increased audio fidelity, THEATER 200 contains dual 12-bit analog-to-digital converters. Other products on the market only offer 9-bits or less, putting ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO in a class of its own when it comes to audio quality.
REMOTE WONDER
One feature that is carried over from the ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 8500DV is ATI’s REMOTE WONDER remote control unit. REMOTE WONDER is custom tailored to the ALL-IN-WONDER family, providing one button access to the applications within Multimedia Center 8.0. To launch the TV player, simply press the “TV” button, or the DVD button can be used to open ATI’s software DVD player.
[image]
| <% print_image("03"); %> |
The REMOTE WONDER can even act as a mouse. The directional keypad on the top of the remote acts as a joystick for your mouse with the buttons on the left and right acting as left and right mouse buttons. The power button is used to close programs, and six function keys can be programmed to perform a wide variety of functions.
In case you were wondering, REMOTE WONDER is an RF remote; line of sight is not necessary to operate the remote control unit. In fact, you can even operate the remote from another room! Each remote control unit can be assigned a unique ID for those of you who live in dormitories or apartment complexes, or if you’re lucky enough to have multiple PCs in your house or apartment equipped with an ALL-IN-WONDER graphics card.
SIDEBAR: While ATI hasn’t officially announced it, the ATI documentation CD clearly lists the ALL-IN-WONDER 9000 PRO as one of their products in the ALL-IN-WONDER family.
| Installation/TV Player | Page:: ( 4 / 19 ) |
Installation
With a multimedia graphics card loaded with features, you’d expect that the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO would be difficult to setup. Fortunately, this is not the case. Once you’ve got the graphics card installed, ATI’s driver CD can install everything for you in a few mouse clicks. Plug in your cable or antenna, and attach your sound card to the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO (via the HDTV component video adapter) and you’re good to go! Total installation time was roughly ten minutes.
Once you’ve got basic functionality up and running, you can connect your camcorder, TV, and any other peripherals to the external input module provided in the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO packaging. Again, everything is fairly self-explanatory. ATI includes a chart to walk you through the installation process, as well as a dedicated manual.
[image]
| <% print_image("04"); %> |
TV Player
The ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO’s TV tuner can receive up to 125 cable television stations or 70 antenna channels, and is highly flexible. For instance, if you’d like to watch TV while your browse the Internet, ATI provides its TV bar. Simply launch Internet Explorer like you would normally, then launch ATI TV via the “View” menu in IE’s menu bar. Voila, a small window opens on the left side of your IE window so you can surf the web while you check out your favorite television program.
[image]
| <% print_image("05"); %> |
Speaking of searching, ATI’s channel surf feature allows you to 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.
If you’d like to get some work done while watching TV, you can even set the TV as a transparent desktop. Television stations literally appear behind your work. If you’d rather display the station in a window rather than take up your entire desktop, you can do that too: who ever said you couldn’t get a little work done while watching TV obviously never had an ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO!
[image]
| <% print_image("06"); %> | <% print_image("07"); %> |
Concerned parents will also be glad to know that the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO offers parental controls in the form of channel lockout. With this feature you can block out specific programs at certain times, which you can later unlock with a password. This provides peace of mind for parents that can’t monitor their children at all times.
One new feature that has been implemented in Multimedia Center 8.0 is picture-in-picture support (via mulTView). Once the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO is paired with a second TV tuner card (such as ATI’s TV WONDER), mulTView kicks in. In addition to watching two distinct stations at once, you can also use mulTView to record one television program while watching another.
SIDEBAR: The black window in the upper right section of the screen is where the TV is displayed, unfortunately we couldn’t get screenshots of it in action but it definitely worked.
| GUIDE Plus+ Software | Page:: ( 5 / 19 ) |
Gemstar GUIDE Plus+
The real gem of the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO is certainly the inclusion of Gemstar’s GUIDE Plus+ software. To the uninitiated, GUIDE Plus+ would probably be likened to the TV listings in your local newspaper or TV Guide, but in all honesty GUIDE Plus+ goes much further than that.
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. The default station names are provided, but you can customize those if you desire, and as you see in the screenshot below the current station is displayed in the upper left corner as you’re browsing the channel listings.
[image]
| <% print_image("08"); %> |
What 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.
You can also use GUIDE Plus+ to automatically record your favorite television programs. 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)
TV-ON-DEMAND
Tying in seamlessly with GUIDE Plus+ (and the TV player) is ATI’s TV-ON-DEMAND feature. TV-ON-DEMAND allows you to pause a live program, step away from the TV to run errands, and return later to pick up right where you left off, just like the TiVo commercials you see on TV.
TV-ON-DEMAND is integrated effortlessly with the REMOTE WONDER 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.
Personal Video Recorder
The personal video recorder is used to record television programs via the TV player, essentially allowing your hard drive to act as a digital VCR. The personal video recorder supports all the major file types for recording video, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, AVI, Windows Media, and ATI’s own proprietary VCR format.
The video recorder is incredibly flexible, dozens of presets are available to choose from for all your video recording duties (with brief descriptions for rookies), you can even go with custom settings if you so desire. Fortunately everything is laid out in a well-designed package, so setting up your video recording settings isn’t as difficult as it may sound. But we still feel you’ll probably spend a few test recordings getting the right combination of video quality to disk space usage before you find the arrangement that’s right for your needs.
SIDEBAR: For even better visual quality, you could hook the ALL-IN-WONDER card up to your digital cable or satellite, although then you’d lose the recording abilities of the card.
| Closed Caption/DVD/CD | Page:: ( 6 / 19 ) |
Closed Caption/Hot words
Unlike previous ALL-IN-WONDER products, with the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO you can use the closed caption feature to search for certain words or phrases.
For example, if you were watching Sportscenter on ESPN and you wanted to skip straight to the Michael Jordan highlights, type “Michael Jordan” in the hot words search menu and Multimedia Center 8.0 will then use the closed caption text to search for any time the word Michael Jordan 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.
DVD Player
ATI has always been well known for its DVD playback capabilities, and the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO is no exception, the visual quality is exemplary. The DVD player in particular supports everything you’d expect from a software DVD player, you’ve got your typical chapter search, pan and zoom, selectable viewing angles, etc. Like the TV player, ThruView can be used to blend the DVD into your primary desktop or a discrete window. This allows you to get a little work done while watching a movie. One new feature that has been added to the DVD player is support for dual subtitles.
[image]
| <% print_image("09"); %> | <% print_image("10"); %> |
CD Player
While CD player’s are a standard feature in the operating system, ATI still bundles its CD player in the Multimedia Center 8.0 software suite. All the standard functions are present as well as the ability to shuffle and repeat songs. Gracenote’s CDDB music recognition service is used to retrieve the title of each track on your CD automatically.
File Player, VCD Player
In addition to the aforementioned players, ATI also bundles software for watching Video CDs as well as playing back captured audio/video files.
Stills Gallery
The stills gallery is used to capture still images during video playback, whether it is with the TV, VCD, or DVD player. In any of these three applications you can take screenshots that are then saved to the stills gallery where you can review them. From there, you can save the images you want, and discard the rest. The DVD images above were taken in the stills gallery and then saved to the hard disk.
SIDEBAR: One of the readers asked if the stills gallery worked 100% as advertised in the preview. We can definitely say now that it does!
| Test Systems | Page:: ( 7 / 19 ) |
System Setup
Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz
MSI 845PE Max2-FIR Motherboard (845PE)
256MB Mushkin PC3200 (operating at DDR333) SDRAM
ATI ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO
ATI RADEON 9700 PRO
ATI RADEON 9500 PRO
Driver version 6.13.10.6200c (Catalyst 2.4)
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 reference
Detonator version 40.72 (WHQL-certified)
30GB IBM Deskstar DTLA 307030 ATA/100 Hard Drive
Windows XP Professional
DirectX 8.1
Benchmarks
3D Mark 2001 Second Edition Build 330 – 32-bit color
Quake III: Arena version 1.17
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter (Elephant Atrium demo)
Unreal Tournament 2003
Comanche 4
Jedi Knight II
SIDEBAR: ATI dropped the “RADEON” moniker from the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 name, they must have felt the name would be too long.
| 3D Mark 2001 | Page:: ( 8 / 19 ) |
3DMark 2001 - DirectX 8
SIDEBAR: We were really surprised with our overclocking results with the AIW card. We actually clocked it higher but artifacts were present in many games.
| Serious Sam 2 | Page:: ( 9 / 19 ) |
Serious Sam 2 - OpenGL
SIDEBAR: The only feature we could really think of for the next REMOTE WONDER would be to make it a true universal remote.
| Quake III | Page:: ( 10 / 19 ) |
Quake III - High Quality
SIDEBAR: The REMOTE WONDER made its debut with the ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 8500 DV
| Comanche 4 | Page:: ( 11 / 19 ) |
Comanche 4 demo
SIDEBAR: ATI recently announced their ALL-IN-WONDER VE. A PCI card based on the RADEON 7500 core, we’ll be posting our review of it later this week.
| Unreal Tournament 2003 | Page:: ( 12 / 19 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2003 - flyby
Unreal Tournament 2003 - botmatch
SIDEBAR: If you miss the Firewire ports present on the ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 8500DV, ATI offers its DV WONDER add-on.
| Jedi Knight II | Page:: ( 13 / 19 ) |
Jedi Knight II – High Quality
SIDEBAR: We tried not to use the word Swiss Army knife when it came to the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO, but it really does apply.
| 4x Anti-Aliasing | Page:: ( 14 / 19 ) |
Quake III – High Quality
SIDEBAR: Another feature request for the REMOTE WONDER: backlit buttons, perfect for use in the dark!
| 8x Anisotropic filtering | Page:: ( 15 / 19 ) |
Quake III – High Quality
SIDEBAR: We’d love to see ATI implement an ALL-IN-WONDER card based on the RADEON 9500 family. We’re keeping our fingers crossed, as there is a huge price discrepancy between the 8500 and 9700 ALL-IN-WONDER products.
| 4x AA/8x Aniso | Page:: ( 16 / 19 ) |
Quake III – High Quality
SIDEBAR: I can almost turn off the caps lock key, wohoo!
| UT 4x AA/8x Aniso | Page:: ( 17 / 19 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2003 Flyby
SIDEBAR: The first ALL-IN-WONDER product debuted in 1996.
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 18 / 19 ) |
Pros
Performance: As a card based on the RADEON 9700 PRO VPU, the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO is going to be fast. If you’re a hardcore gamer and crave the best performance and high visual quality, the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO won’t disappoint.
Multimedia Center 8.0: ATI has done a brilliant job of integrating all the features of the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO under the Multimedia Center 8.0 interface. Everything you need to control the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO is always one click away, making things quick and easy for the end user. NVIDIA should really take notes on this feature in particular. Personal Cinema software setup is much more complex, and isn’t nearly as easy to navigate around as Multimedia Center 8.0. It’s practically a night and day difference between the two.
The addition of mulTView in Multimedia Center 8.0 is definitely our favorite new feature.
Gemstar GUIDE Plus+: The Gemstar GUIDE Plus+ software is easy to install and use thanks to its easy to use interface. By going with the same simple format used by TV guides for decades it makes browsing channels a snap and with its powerful recording features, you can schedule a season’s worth of programming in under a minute. GUIDE Plus+ easy rivals the offerings TiVo and ReplayTV, turning your PC into a digital VCR on steroids.
REMOTE WONDER: ATI’s REMOTE WONDER is well integrated with all the features the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO supports. Launching any of Multimedia Center 8.0’s software applications can be performed by the press of a button, with controls also available to control many functions within each application. Just in case you need a little more flexibility, ATI provides a directional keypad for using the REMOTE WONDER as a mouse (with left and right mouse buttons) as well as six programmable buttons that you can customize to perform practically any task you’d like within Windows. ATI has pretty much nailed it with their REMOTE WONDER remote control unit, we’re hard-pressed to think of anything they’ve missed that would make the experience any easier. Couch potatoes rejoice!
Price (bundle): When ATI originally demonstrated the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO to us back in September, they were shooting for a price tag of $500. At the time we thought that was a good price, as the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO combines the $400 RADEON 9700 PRO with the REMOTE WONDER ($49), HDTV component video adapter ($29) Pinnacle Studio 8, Matchware Mediator 7, and Morrowind (not to mention the TV tuning capabilities and Gemstar thrown on top). But now to see that ATI has outperformed their estimates by $50, we’re even more sold on the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO, it’s a terrific value.
Cons
Documentation: Sadly, ATI provides no printed documentation on operating Multimedia Center 8.0, Gemstar GUIDE PLUS+, the TV player, or any of the other features ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO provides. The only form of hard literature that is provided in the packaging is the handy installation chart, as well as a full-fledged manual dealing with the same topic. In our opinion, hardware installation is probably one of the easier facets of operating the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO; it’s the day-to-day features like TV-ON-DEMAND, Schedule, and others that probably require more documentation.
Fortunately, the interface of all these programs makes things fairly self-explanatory. And ATI does provide complete documentation on all of these programs on the driver CD; we just wished ATI had included a hard copy of these manuals in the ALL-IN-WONDER packaging.
Price: As competitively priced as the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO is in comparison to ATI’s list price for the RADEON 9700 PRO, $450 is still a lot of money to spend on a graphics card. If you went with a third party RADEON 9700 PRO card and a PCI TV tuner such as the TV WONDER you could save yourself a few bucks, or perhaps you could go with something like the ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 8500DV if 3D performance wasn’t as important to you.
Compatibility: We’re still waiting on a RADEON 9700 PRO card that will work properly with the SiS 648 chipset, as the world’s first AGP 8X chipset for the Pentium 4, you’d think this issue would have been addressed before the RADEON 9700 PRO shipped to market. If you currently own a SiS 648-based motherboard and purchase a RADEON 9700 PRO card, don’t be surprised if you run into stability problems, especially at higher resolutions.
SIDEBAR: Sapphire will also be producing ALL-IN-WONDER products here in America soon, although they plan to price their boards similar to ATI.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 19 / 19 ) |
FiringSquad says:
If we could only have one hardware item on our Christmas wish list, it would definitely be the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO. Sure, we could list the Pentium 4 3.06GHz, an nForce2-based motherboard, or a 24” Sony GDM-FW900 wide screen monitor (keep in mind that the author of this article is utilizing a 21” monitor), but none of those products are capable of enhancing the PC experience like the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO.
ATI has seamlessly integrated a high performance graphics accelerator with an equally compelling multimedia package, and polished it off with a software interface that is easy to use while at the same time being incredibly powerful. The fact that they’re only asking $50 more for the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO makes it an even more impressive package, heck, a more accurate term would actually be steal.
The concept behind the home theater PC has always been a good one, although early offerings just fell a little short of the desired goal. With HDTV component video output, a S/PDIF output, and the REMOTE WONDER remote control, the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO has just brought the clunky old PC one step closer to making this concept a reality. You could even say that ATI goes one step further by integrating Gemstar GUIDE Plus+ and TV-ON-DEMAND, both of these features rival set top personal video recorders from TiVo and ReplayTV, and neither costs a penny to use.
Even if you don’t wish to integrate your PC with your home theater, it’s hard not to like the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO. You’ve still got the fastest graphics accelerator money can buy for gaming, and you’ve now got a highly capable TV (among other things) on your PC.
Say what you will about the usefulness of having so much integrated onto one graphics card, especially with the short shelf life of today’s graphics industry. But you can’t deny that the ATI ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO is the ultimate graphics card on the market right now. It’s got all the performance, even more features, and is priced competitively. ATI has really outdone themselves with this graphics card and we can’t help but award this card our Editor’s Choice Award and the highest score a graphics card has ever received in our publication’s history. Congratulations to ATI on a job well done and we can’t wait to see what their multimedia team has in store for us in 2003.
SIDEBAR: Is the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO on your Christmas list this year or are you dreaming of something else? Voice your thoughts in the news comments!