ATI ALL-IN-WONDER X800 GT PCI Express

Review: ATI ALL-IN-WONDER X800 GT PCI Express

Thoughts

When we did the feature preview, I wrote the following: The change to the Microtune 2121 does the ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon X800 XL for PCI Express a lot of favours in Europe, technically, with a knock-on effect of increased feature set. The 400MHz X800 XL and AIW features, on PCI Express, should make it a massive seller in the UK and Europe when it appears later in the summer.

Bearing in mind that it's the X800 GT and not the XL that turned up first, the statement is still the same. DVB-T tuning worked great (barring some initial kinks in testing that had me puzzled for the best part of a week) and as the flagship feature for the new hardware, it just reinforces my opinion that the All-In-Wonder is a really class-leading piece of hardware.

Infact, it literally has no competion, NVIDIA not doing anything in the 3D-board-with-TV-tuner-and-media-software space with Personal Cinema for what feels like over a year. The XL SKU will show up in due course and it's likely we'll give that a spin when it shows, hopefully with some same-frame capture for proper comparative testing.

The conclusions for All-In-Wonder reviews are generally positive and this one is no exception. The addition of DVB-T to the mix of good capture quality, good analogue TV tuning quality decent software and good 3D performance enhances the product massively. DVB-T is taking off in Europe and the PCI Express All-In-Wonder range is the first to bring the feature paired on the same board as a competent 3D accelerator.

Availability should be fairly swift, ATI looking to capitalise on the last runs of X800 hardware before their new generation shows up. Remote Wonder II isn't a strong point for this reviewer, but it's the only real low point that I can see.

Great TV tuning, good media capture and organisation ability, compatibility with Windows XP Media Center Edition and the small form-factor of the PCB and cooler make for a really attractive part. Given the range of output capabilities and the feature set, the All-In-Wonder X800 GT deserves to succeed. Highly recommended from me again.

If you want a single board that does 3D and media tuning that comes with good software, and your budget means you're happy with the mid-range 3D performance and price of the X800 GT version, you're staring right at it. Godfrey's guys done good.

HEXUS Awards

ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon X800 GT

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did you have to chance to see if it overclocked up to ‘normal’ x800gt frequencies?

nice review guys, but I think the “world exclusive” is a little false, driverheaven posted a review on this a few days ago, was linked on hardocp as well…………

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nice review guys, but I think the “world exclusive” is a little false, driverheaven posted a review on this a few days ago

:Oops: ‘our bad’… perhaps…

of course we specifically go out of our way to check such things, however the site you mention is not one that i personally have bookmarked; furthermore i don’t know whether, when the person ultimately responsible for checking these this, actually got a results hit on any of the search engines.

in any event as a result of your bring this to our attention, i'll get our claim changed.

sincere apologies to anyone looking in, especially to Alan and one of his employees Stuart, because when we made the claim, i do believe that we all thought that no editorial based on hands-on experience had been published anywhere else at all in any language.

however i'll have a think about the wording of our change, because a number of ATi officials have specifically told me and confirmed that ‘driverheaven’ is an “official” BETA test site for ATi Technologies.

almost certainly therefore, ‘driverheaven’ is directly provided with privileged, non-public, ‘inside’ information for the purpose of helping ATi make ATi products better.

i considered whether or not HEXUS should sign agreements to be part of the same BETA test programme(s), but i was uncomfortable with it, feeling that any such legally binding agreement might compromise our editorial independence and integrity.

in briefly discussing my concerns with an official from ATi, i was told, and i quote: “it’s true to say that they ('driverheaven') are certainly sympathetic to our messaging”.

i’ve not yet made an absolute personal judgment on this myself (as if i even had the time these days!), and in fact i had previously cautioned various members of the UK Press to be opened minded as to whether ‘driverheaven’ should be fairly perceived a ‘fan-site’ (their words).

indeed in all my direct communications with the site’s owner Alan, i’ve found him, and Stuart, to be thoughtful people with conviction.

fairly soon i should be in a position to meet with Alan; when i do i’ll buy him a Guinness and ask him how he thinks he squares ‘driverheaven’ being an ATi BETA test site with producing objective editorial on ATi and its products, and its competitors.

from direct conversations with NVIDIA it already seems to have formed its own view…

in any event being an “official” BETA test site for a manufacturer is very different to publications signing an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) for unreleased products.

in general terms NDA for publications like HEXUS are effectively designed to gag us, and stop us publishing product specific information (directly provided to us under the NDA) until a specified date.

as an example HEXUS is provided and trusted with next generation technology from NVIDIA, and HEXUS make an undertaking with NVIDIA, that if the information does not come into the public domain, then HEXUS will not to publish our findings until the agreed date.

a question then - if ATi published an editorial ‘review’, of the All-in-Wonder X800 GT, on its own site, would you have queried HEXUS ‘World Exclusive’ claim?

in any event ‘extremeedition’ - thx for the heads up…

cheers,

PD

Does anyone know if they plan to do budget DVB-T AIW cards for people whose last gaming experience was on a SNES?

:) unless I missed it - when will / has the card been released? What sort of dosh are we looking at?