Conclusion
So what can we conclude about this video card, or rather this All-In-One card? How does the card look, and what kind of bundle does it have? Is it a fast gaming card, before and/or after overclocking? What kind of quality does it have in all areas? Lets briefly look back at what we've seen
First the card and the bundle. The AiW is nothing special to look at, as it doesn't have a fancy cooling solution or a colored PCB, but does have one very prominent feature, the TV Tuner. The software bundle that comes with the card is fairly full featured, even though it doesn't have more than two CD's in total. It still provides a capable video editing software program, as well as ATi's very nice Multimedia Center. One very appreciated addition to the retail AiW 9000 Pro bundle is the addition of the Remote Wonder, which brings the value of the bundle up quite abit, as this remote is very useful for watching TV or DVD's on your computer from across the room. MulTView is a very nice addition, though it only works with other ATi Tuners, such as the TV Wonder and not other manufacturers cards such as the WinTV Go. But MulTView adds the ability to have two tuners working together which is something I've been looking for for a long time.
Quality is something often overlooked by many people, but quality is very important, especially in a video card that you will be looking at quite alot. The 2D quality of the card was very good, besting most of the other cards I have tested so far, including a Radeon 8500LE and the GeForce 4 MX 440. 3D quality without any antialiasing or ansiotropic filtering is very nice, and the AA works very well in its job of removing the jagged edges of the polygons, though the ansiotropic filtering isn't always used, so in our tests didn't show any type of improvement.
These quality features are standard on any video card today, but how about video quality? TV capturing quality was the best out of our small test group by a fairly large margin, and as such TV will be clear for viewing and capturing at high resolutions. TV capturing through the SVHS port is also very nice on the AiW 9000 Pro, looking better than the reference image, taken straight from the video itself. One point is that everyone's favorite copy protection makes an appearance in this card, covering almost the entire video making capturing of many things, even home movies that much harder. TV-Out quality left something to be desired however, as the picture was blurry both in the text and in the image as well, apart from the fact that it didn't cover the entire screen as it should have.
The 3D performance of this card was not bad, but it was not the fastest card tested. In OpenGL it did well, besting its competitor, the MX 440 in Serious Sam SE, but it also lost to the MX 440 in Jedi Knight II testing. The Jedi Knight test proves that nVidia definitely has better drivers for some things, such as Jedi Knight. In Direct X, the AiW 9000 Pro does much better, beating the MX 440 both in Max Payne and UT2003 by a greater margin, over 18% in both games and all the tests with those games.
The price of this card is fairly nice, about at this time. Compared to the MSI MX 440-VTD8X which , it may not look as good. But considering you get a TV Tuner, which the MSI card doesn't include, and you also get the Remote Wonder which itself is , the AiW card's price doesn't look so bad.
Good Points
- TV Tuner
- Remote Wonder
- Very good TV-In quality
- Decent 3D performance
- Very Good 2D Quality
- MulTView
Bad Points
- TV-Out quality needs work
- Higher price
- Macrovision protection
- Not the fastest video card
- Uninspiring overclocking results
Bottom Line
If you are looking for a budget TV Tuner video card, then this card is definitely one that should be on a short list for your system, especially if you aren't a 'hardcore' gamer. The only thing holding me back from giving this card our Editor's choice is the TV-Out quality as well as the Macrovision protection built into the card.
Agree? Disagree? Discuss it in the forums
Previous Page - UT 2003
Home
|
ATI All-In-Wonder 9000 Pro: ATi has been making the AiW series for the last several years. Today's review will look at one of ATi's latest but not necessarily fastest All-in-Wonder video card.
