TV Out Quality

AIW X1900	Sat Receiver

The TV output was something of a mixed bag using a S-Video connection, and the bottleneck we think may be the television. Movie playback was very good, but the 2D Windows was not terribly strong and will hinge greatly on the supported resolutions of the television.

Capture Quality

We setup a prerecorded trailer of The Village on our satellite PVR and via a S-Video cable, ran the feed to the AIW X1900, an AIW X1800 XL, and an ASUS TV Tuner (from the P5WD2 kit).

AIW X1900	AIW X1800 XL	ASUS Tuner

The two ATI tuners share have similar image quality, which isn't too surprising given both use the same Theater chip and VPU family. Avivo did play a role here as we were able to tweak the settings to achieve a slightly sharper image quality with less aliasing. The ASUS tuner had some colour issues and "patches", though nothing too terrible. Keep in mind that we used the same S-Video cable (from Monster) for all the feeds. Cable quality matters as we'll demonstrate in a moment.

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 X1900 supports three input options for video capture which are COAX, Composite, S-Video. As mentioned earlier, the Component connections are limited to output only. Clicking the thumbs below will open a new window.

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.

Final Words

Based on the gaming performance seen today, we think the All-In-Wonder X1900 PCIe is quite a leap forward compared to their previous generation part. The gaming performance got a major shot in the arm, and HQ gaming is very possible with the AIW X1900. The AIW X1800 XL was no slouch by any means, but the improvements with the R580 results in better IQ and performance, particularly in pixel shader intensive games.

Looking at it from a pure speed perspective, the AIW X1900 is pretty competitive with the NVIDIA 7800 GTX. Both are about the same price (the 7800 is cheaper though), but the obvious advantage the 7800 GTX has for gaming is the ability to run two of them in SLI. The official (public) stance on CrossFire for the AIW X1900 is it does not work at this time. I doubt we'll ever see CrossFire on the current generation of AIW cards due to the whole Master/Slave setup CrossFire requires.

There may be some grumblings about not using the XT or XTX version of the X1900, but the reasons are pretty simple when you think about it. While one may think that it's as easy as grabbing a desktop card, slapping on a few chips and calling it a day, the truth of the matter it's much more than that.

The high-end products put out a lot more heat, and since the market for the All-In-Wonder is primarily the HTPC or the multipurpose PC, heat is quite obviously a bad thing here. It is far from scientific, but the basic formula is more heat plus an aggressive cooler equals a louder PC. Not exactly what you want when trying to watch the 18th hole of a Skins game.

Another consideration against using the XT or XTX variants of the X1900 is cost. If ATI did manage to fit all of the AIW features on the X1900 XT/XTX, then we'd go from a card to one well in excess of $650. Does that mean we would not have liked to have seen an uber-AIW X1900 XT/XTX? Hell no. While such a product will not come cheap, both for the consumer and ATI, we're fairly certain there are going to be some people licking their chops for such a card.

The standard multimedia fare is still present with ATI's latest, so whether it's HD output or high quality TV capture, the AIW X1900 PCIe can do it all. ATI doesn't just throw in an expensive card and a bunch of blocks though. Their own MMC 9.13 is an excellent multimedia suite that can be especially useful for those of you using versions of Windows outside of Media Center. Gemstar GuidePlus+ is also included, though only those of you on cable will benefit from it. ATI also includes editing software in the form of Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0, and Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0 to cover aspiring directors.

The product does not really have any flaws in its design or packaging and the only shortcomings we can mention are those that were left off the design list due to pricing or target market. We would have also like to have seen some HD input options, particularly for those with HD cable and satellite receivers, but perhaps we'll need to wait a while longer for that. The key was having the card ready on time on virtual store shelves, and currently we have found . ATI's own online shop has been taking orders since last week, and we expect more to pop up as the NDA on the reviews lift today.

Despite not using ATI's top-of-the-line VPU in the All-In-Wonder X1900 PCIe, this version of the All-In-Wonder is the fastest one yet. There are a number of value added extras we mentioned earlier, that combined with the card itself puts it into a class of it's own. A dedicated TV tuner can't match the All-In-Wonder's features, and currently there is no product "from the other guys" that can compete with these features at the AIW X1900's price point.

Pros: Excellent gaming performance, great image quality. Lots of multimedia features and good value for the money. Available now.

Cons: No YPrPb input, some IQ issues with 3DMark06.

Bottom Line: Not everyone who buys a PC is a hardcore gamer, but there are a fair number of people who do kill time by blowing stuff up. At the same time, a lot of folks do more than just play games. Make no mistake, you probably are a "more than causal" gamer if you're considering the AIW X1900 PCIe for a HTPC, and in our opinion, the All-In-Wonder X1900 PCIe is the All-In-Wonder card that HTPC and gaming enthusiasts have been waiting for.