All in Wonder

[bharok]

I was thinking of getting an ATI all in wonder video card. A few questions:

What are the main differences between the ATI 9000 All in Wonder and ATI 9700 All in Wonder?
Will there be any differences in quality or speed when using it to watch or record TV shows?
Is the 9700 worth the extra money? There is a $165 price difference.

 

[TROGDORdBURNINATOR]

What are the main differences between the ATI 9000 All in Wonder and ATI 9700 All in Wonder?

They both use the same Rage 2 chip which features videosoap (on the fly video cleanup including TV in) and has hardware Mpeg2 encoding (not real time) it's also 12 bit which is a signifigant improvement over the old Rage chip. They both have the same TV tuner and breakout cables. The only difference is the ram, PCB, and GPU. In short, the 3d capabilities.

Will there be any differences in quality or speed when using it to watch or record TV shows?

Absolutely none. In fact, the cheap All in Wonder VE which also uses the Rage 2 chip is every bit the equal in this area to the All in Wonder 9700 Pro.

Is the 9700 worth the extra money? There is a $165 price difference.

If you're a hardcore gamer, yes. If you are happy running UT2k3 at 50fps with the setting juiced at 1024x768, then no.

 

[Sheriff]

ATI AIW 9700 allows 2 TV Tuners to be used in Unison, is faster and is DirectX9 compatible...also has a few other perks

 

[TROGDORdBURNINATOR]

ATI AIW 9700 allows 2 TV Tuners to be used in Unison

As does any rage 2 AIW. That's the 9000AIW and the AIW VE.

also has a few other perks

No...sure doesn't. It's just faster in 3d.

 

[Sheriff]

TROGDORdBURNINATOR so the 9000 AIW has the Cobra Engine, MMC 7.6 and the same software package ?..I stand corrected then as I jumped from the 7500

 

[TROGDORdBURNINATOR]

TROGDORdBURNINATOR so the 9000 AIW has the Cobra Engine, MMC 7.6 and the same software package

Yes, it does. In fact, it comes with a free upgrade to MMC 8.1 available here while the AIW 7500 is not entitled to it (it requires an original software CD to upgrade the DVD engine-will not work with 7500 cd-you must pay for new MMC)
It also comes with ATI's version of Pinnacle Studio 8

The "cobra engine" that you're referring to is the Rage 2 chip that I've been talking about.

Also, in two weeks with the release of the 3.4 cats (the 3.3s were scrapped) there will be a new MMC released which you would also be able to upgrade to. It's worth it, believe me.

 

[Sheriff]

I'm anxiously waiting ...I read about the cancel of the 3.3's over @ ATI Rage, was this due to the realease of the 9800? and what about the leaked Dell's...are they not an improvement over the 3.2's?

 

[Erasmus-X]

The biggest thing you're actually paying for in those two AIW cards is the 9700's superior graphics core. They're totally different beasts. The 9700 is a fully DX9-compliant accelerator, the 9000 is not (DX8.1-compliant). The 9700 also has double the memory, twice the memory bandwidth, a faster clock speed, AGP 8X support (versus 4X), and an 8-pixel pipeline (versus the 9000's 4).

If you're playing lots of games, the 9700 is worth the extra investment. If not, the 9000 can be had for half the price. The video capture and TV tuner features are identical in the two models.

 

[TROGDORdBURNINATOR]

was this due to the realease of the 9800

" It is true we could not get them certified when we tried. It was not a problem with our drivers but a problem with the certification test. We could not wait for the test to be fixed so we moved on with the next natural choice (CATALYST 3.4)" - Terry Makedon

 

[TROGDORdBURNINATOR]

what about the leaked Dell's...are they not an improvement over the 3.2's?

" No such thing as Dell Catalyst 3,3 driver. Dell has a driver called 7.86 which is used specifically for one of their product sku's. It is not a general driver" - Terry Makedon