The All-In-Wonder 2006 PCIe Edition: The Latest Multimedia Solution From ATI
by Josh Venning on December 22, 2005 7:15 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
Hopefully we will actually be seeing some All-In-Wonder 2006 Edition PCI-e parts on sale today, and not just "out of stock" either. This is a card that would make an excellent gift for any pc user interested in video and multimedia, but as close as it is to Christmas it might be difficult getting a hold of one in time, especially given ATI's history with availability after launch. The fact that certain parts (ie. X1600) took so long after launch to actually become available made us go from slightly annoyed to eventually worried that something horrible had happened at ATI to cause such delays. Thankfully we are seeing some X1600s for sale now though, and hopefully ATI will be true to their word to be better about getting parts out on the day of release now.
The X1300 based A-I-W 2006 is not quite as impressive as the recent X1800 XL version, but that's mostly because it doesn't have the kind of raw power that the X1800 XL has for gaming. It could be argued however that for a card like this, all the extra gaming power isn't really necessary, and the power of an X1300 clocked slightly lower than stock would be much more practical for people in the market for an A-I-W card. Just the fact that it will most likely be much lower-priced is incentive enough for many to choose the A-I-W 2006 over the X1800 XL A-I-W. With a retail price of $199 it's still a little pricey, but as we said before, whether it's worth buying is very subjective based on each person's needs.
Right now you can buy a standard X1300 Pro for about $105, and given the fact that the A-I-W 2006's engine is clocked 155MHz lower than a standard X1300 Pro, the All-In-Wonder features are what you would really be buying this card for. But again, prices are subject to change, and the different multimedia features of the A-I-W 2006 are what will draw different PC users to the card. The A-I-W 2006 is a little less specialized than the X1800 XL A-I-W, as it will be geared mainly towards people who want the video playback/recording features of the card over gaming performance. But in spite of this, even with the lower clock speeds it can still run games like Halflife 2 and Doom 3 at resolutions up to 1280x1024 reasonably well.
This card does what it claims to do very well and it has a lot of good video features. Another great thing it has going for it is its incredible ease of use. The thought of finding and installing computer hardware for recording and playing video on a PC can be daunting to some, but for people not very familiar with this kind of thing, it shouldn't be much trouble at all getting everything setup and running quickly. Setting up the Gemstar GUIDE Plus+ to record and watch shows is fairly easy and straightforward as well, and we commend ATI for making the A-I-W 2006 so easy to use.
As with other All-In-Wonder cards, the A-I-W 2006 won't do the kind of job that a full media center PC would do for a home theater system, but it will let you watch or record video on your PC, among other things, and probably for a pretty decent price. ATI seems to have hit a little closer to the mark with this version of the All-In-Wonder in terms of value, and most of those on the lookout for a multimedia solution this Christmas will find that this is the card for them.
Hopefully we will actually be seeing some All-In-Wonder 2006 Edition PCI-e parts on sale today, and not just "out of stock" either. This is a card that would make an excellent gift for any pc user interested in video and multimedia, but as close as it is to Christmas it might be difficult getting a hold of one in time, especially given ATI's history with availability after launch. The fact that certain parts (ie. X1600) took so long after launch to actually become available made us go from slightly annoyed to eventually worried that something horrible had happened at ATI to cause such delays. Thankfully we are seeing some X1600s for sale now though, and hopefully ATI will be true to their word to be better about getting parts out on the day of release now.
The X1300 based A-I-W 2006 is not quite as impressive as the recent X1800 XL version, but that's mostly because it doesn't have the kind of raw power that the X1800 XL has for gaming. It could be argued however that for a card like this, all the extra gaming power isn't really necessary, and the power of an X1300 clocked slightly lower than stock would be much more practical for people in the market for an A-I-W card. Just the fact that it will most likely be much lower-priced is incentive enough for many to choose the A-I-W 2006 over the X1800 XL A-I-W. With a retail price of $199 it's still a little pricey, but as we said before, whether it's worth buying is very subjective based on each person's needs.
Right now you can buy a standard X1300 Pro for about $105, and given the fact that the A-I-W 2006's engine is clocked 155MHz lower than a standard X1300 Pro, the All-In-Wonder features are what you would really be buying this card for. But again, prices are subject to change, and the different multimedia features of the A-I-W 2006 are what will draw different PC users to the card. The A-I-W 2006 is a little less specialized than the X1800 XL A-I-W, as it will be geared mainly towards people who want the video playback/recording features of the card over gaming performance. But in spite of this, even with the lower clock speeds it can still run games like Halflife 2 and Doom 3 at resolutions up to 1280x1024 reasonably well.
This card does what it claims to do very well and it has a lot of good video features. Another great thing it has going for it is its incredible ease of use. The thought of finding and installing computer hardware for recording and playing video on a PC can be daunting to some, but for people not very familiar with this kind of thing, it shouldn't be much trouble at all getting everything setup and running quickly. Setting up the Gemstar GUIDE Plus+ to record and watch shows is fairly easy and straightforward as well, and we commend ATI for making the A-I-W 2006 so easy to use.
As with other All-In-Wonder cards, the A-I-W 2006 won't do the kind of job that a full media center PC would do for a home theater system, but it will let you watch or record video on your PC, among other things, and probably for a pretty decent price. ATI seems to have hit a little closer to the mark with this version of the All-In-Wonder in terms of value, and most of those on the lookout for a multimedia solution this Christmas will find that this is the card for them.
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rob46 - Saturday, December 24, 2005 - link
Since the AIW 2006 PCIe is based off the architecture of the x1300, can any other x1300 card be used to set up a Crossfire system? There was an article a little while ago that stated that the x1300 series wouldn't need a Crossfire master-card so any x1300 card should, in theory, be able to complete the Crossfire system right?macraig - Saturday, December 24, 2005 - link
It's really bad review journalism that so many reviews are done in a vacuum. None of a product's features or characteristics have meaning as an absolute... they're only meaningful *relative* to other similar competing products. That makes perfect sense, since even human intelligence isn't and can't (yet?) be measured as an absolute. Neither has meaning except relative to a peer.I'd like to see AnandTech and all other sites offering things called reviews to save their words and efforts until they can do the job right, with a full comparative head-to-head spread. "Reviews" in a vacuum like this raise an obvious question of motivation: is this an actual objective review, or merely a verbose conspiratorial marketing ad?
Mark
Galloway1520 - Friday, December 23, 2005 - link
What I'm most curious about is if this card can OC up at least to stock X1300(445MHz up to 600MHz) engine clock. If so, then it should be able to do Crossfire, as the X1300 & X1600 do not require a master/dongle combo.It not, my understanding is that Crossfire automatically 'underclocks' the faster card, and then this combo doesn't look as promising
andlcs - Friday, December 23, 2005 - link
The review didn't mention the memory of this card.Newegg says it's DDR.
ATI Web Site says it's GDDR3.
I think it's F-BGA/GDDR2.
Questar - Thursday, December 22, 2005 - link
"The fact that certain parts (ie. X1600) took so long after launch to actually become available made us go from slightly annoyed to eventually worried that something horrible had happened at ATI to cause such delays."It's been known for months why the x1000 series was delayed. As always, Google is your friend.
DerekWilson - Thursday, December 22, 2005 - link
There are lots of reason for the general "delay" in x1000 series parts, and these have been well documented. Initially the R520 was supposed to launch this past summer and the rest of the lineup would follow in october/november. There was a circuit bug that ended up forcing ATI to push the R520 launch back to the RV515 timeframe. RV515 (x1300) was generally on time, and the RV530 (X1600) was announced at the same time as the rest of the X1000 series (early october). RV530 was scheduled to hit the streets on 11/30. All this is well and good, but it's not what Josh was talking about.The X1600 wasn't available until recently. The X1800 XT was available about 3-5 days after it was scheduled to be (11/5), but it took longer for the X1600 to show up. This is the delay we are talking about -- the delay from when ATI says something will be on shelves until the day it actually is.
We are happy to see some real availability of the All-In-Wonder 2006 today at major online retailers. It was also nice to see a few sites selling the X1800 CrossFire Edition a couple days ago.
This week is certainly a welcome change from what we are used to seeing from ATI.
Araemo - Thursday, December 22, 2005 - link
If this thing is $200 or lower at launch(and $150 or so as time goes on?), it'd be a good option for people with an "SLI" mobo, but no interest in a SLI setup. Put your gaming card in slot 1, put this card in slot 2, use this for VIVO, and the gaming card as your actual video card.Donegrim - Thursday, December 22, 2005 - link
or buy a dedicated TV card for vastly less money, and get a pci one so you wouldnt have to havee a dual PCI-E motherboard. These AIW cards seem pointless when you can get a decent TV card for about £30 ($55 ish)BigLan - Thursday, December 22, 2005 - link
For people in that situation, a pcie theater550 card would be a much better option. Hardware encoding makes a huge difference (despite what was said in the article) and the 550 is much cheaper than this card.Actually, getting a regular x1300 + theater 550 card works out about the same price as the x1300 aiw, and would be a much better option imo (faster gfx card + better TV picture.) Plus it would give you something to put in those pcie x1 slots :)
ksherman - Thursday, December 22, 2005 - link
ah but that 1x slot is inbetween my two Vieo slots... and i dont think any card will fit in there..... (DFI Ultra-D) some times, i get really angry @ DFI for their board design...