Capture Quality - Cable Specific

Video quality is going to rely heavily on the type of (and the quality) of input cables. Out of the box, the AIW X800XL supports three input options for video capture which are COAX, Composite, S-Video. As mentioned earlier, the Component connections are limited to output only.

COAX	Composite	S-Video

In order of quality, COAX will give you the worst quality, with Composite in the middle and S-Video as the best. The differences are quite obvious on a decent HDTV, though older CRT-type televisions may not display the differences very clearly.

Overclocking

With all the extra chips and features, and the relatively conservative heatsink, overclocking is not something we'd expect to have much success with on the AIW X800XL. Using ATITool, the card was reported to be running at a 394MHz core and 491MHz memory.

With the tool, we managed an overclock of 432MHz core and 545MHz memory. This fell short of some overclocks we've seen elsewhere, but still pretty good in our opinion. The end result?

Doom 3 - 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAFF	FPS
AIW X800 XL 394/491	28.9
AIW X800 XL 432/545	34.6

We received a nice 6fps boost in Doom 3 which allowed the AIW X800XL to crack the 30fps mark.

Final Words

Overall the ATI All-In-Wonder X800XL has continued the tradition previous All-In-Wonder cards have set. This is both good and bad. First, the bright spots.

Feature-wise, nothing really comes close to the AIW X800XL as an all around product. If your space is limited in your PCI Express based setup and you're in need of a TV tuner and decent gaming card, the AIW X800XL is tough to beat. The multiple inputs, covering the different cable budgets, an easy to use software package and FM tuner makes it relatively easy to setup a multimedia (or at least a multipupose) box.

Performance is also very good, on par with the 6800 GT. The X800XL is supports CrossFire mode, but ATI has never indicated if the All-In-Wonder models support it (ATI has yet to test this). Keep this in mind if CrossFire is important and watch their site for any new updates on this if there are any. Gameplay was enjoyable at almost all resolutions, though we think 1600x1200 may be pushing it for the latest games. Image quality in games continues to be pretty solid, though we're leaning towards the NVIDIA hardware in some of the games. The moiré issues we spotted in Battlefield 2 were a bit troublesome, but it does not appear in all of the maps.

Image quality for multimedia purposes is quite good. The only issue we had was with the 2D quality on TV, but otherwise video capture and playback were quite strong. Again, the quality will also depend on the cables you use, so there is no point buying a $290 card and putting $5 cables with it.

Not all was roses though. We do feel that given the time the Theater 550 was released, ATI should really consider implementing it into their newer AIW products. The Theater 200 is still good, but it looks to be a bit behind the times considering the praise the newer Theater chip is receiving.

We would like to see two DVI connections for dual digital outputs in future products. Now, not everyone will have two of these screens (I sure do not), there are people who do.

Other than that, we would like to see some high definition input options for those of us with these fancy widescreen LCD screens. Then again, I suppose rather than wiring a DVD player to your PC, you can use the one already installed in your chassis.

Pros: Good performer, feature rich, well priced for what you get.

Cons: Still using the Theater 200. Dual screen limited to just one DVI connection. Component video limited to output only. CrossFire support is unknown.

Bottom Line: Overall, the AIW X800XL is a solid product. From games to watching TV to capturing video, the card pretty much does it all and it does so well. It is not as fast as some other video cards, but ATI never intended this to be strictly for gaming. How many 6800 GTs do you know of that can capture TV video streams out of the box? Yeah, that's what I thought.