Final Hardware Testing
There are a couple of others things worth pointing out before we look at the software bundle and come to the conclusion.VGA output quality issues
Testing with a Dell 2405FPW with that monitor's analogue input showed the review sample AIW Radeon X1900 and AIW Radeon X1800 XLs running out of steam at 1920x1200 using the VGA output on the main I/O cable.Pixel crawl was all too evident at that resolution, and some artifacting was visible along window edges and other text and window decorations on the 2D Windows desktop. The following photograph shows what we mean.
Notice the green pixels on the left edge of the window border? No VGA cable I had access to would make the issue go away. Interestingly, a AIW Radeon X800 GT review sample doesn't show the same limitations in display quality at 1920x1200 on the Dell 2405FPW. Sample specific maybe, but worth noting.
DVI-to-component adaptor testing
Using the component input of a Dell 2405FPW, the DVI-to-component dongle was used to generated a 720p signal for the display to handle on both the AIW Radeon X1900 and AIW Radeon X1800 XL. They were then asked to play a 720p HDTV clip encoded with H.264 at high bitrate.The Dell 2405FPW does a passable impression of a HDTV, with enough screen space to comfortably do 1080i/p if needed, with great image quality to boot. The resulting image quality was excellent, so for those that don't get a component output domino (PAL users), you'll can still enjoy good IQ on your high-end component display.
