ATI All-in-Wonder X800 XT, (256 MB) AGP Video Card

I build my own systems. I'm not usually that concerned about having the fastest and the greatest but lately there have been a couple of games coming out that are just not done justice with anything but a really hot video card. For those that don't know about this kind of stuff, AGP is basically dead, like parallel ATA disk drives, the technology has quite simply reached the pinnacle of its capabilities. This chip is just about the most performance you'll ever get from a AGP card.

Since my motherboard doesn't have a pci express or SLI capability the next time I want a faster video card I'll have to upgrade my motherboard. I chose this card also because in the near future I want to switch to windows 64bit and ATI, unlike several manufacturers, have viable 64bit drivers out for their products. This was a little bit of a risk for me, normally I'm Nvidia all the way however the top end AGP available for about the same price isn't nearly as fast as this card is and also doesn't have the extra features.

What's in the box:
Video card
four pin power adapter
Tons of spaghetti: 3 "dominoes" that provide input and output plugs that connect to the back of the card
svideo cable
rca f cable
ATI Catalyst Drivers
Pinnacle Studio 9
Matchware Mediator 8
ATI Visual Communicator

Installation:
1. Be sure you've got the latest chipset drivers for your chipset loaded into windows
2. Check the ATI site for latest drivers, the ones I got in the box are over a year old.
3. Completely remove your old video driver.
4. Run a registry cleaner to be sure there are no left overs from your old video card---registry messes can really mess you up, clean it out now! (I like Windows Registry Repair Pro)
5. Pop the hood of your case and remove the old card.
6. Install the new card in the AGP slot, connect the power connector (the card won't function without it, it needs more power than what comes through the bus).
7. Replace the case lid.

At this point I booted the machine to be sure the card was going to work before playing with the ton of spaghetti cables for all the extra AIW stuff. My machine booted fine the first time.

8. Install the drivers off the catalyst disk and the newer ones off the ATI site as necessary.
9. Run a few games to test it out.
10. Install the connector for the AIW stuff (it screws in and sticks out quite a ways, can't be close to the wall at all). Get ready to mess with all the spaghetti. The "domino" boxes fit together so they don't take a whole huge amount of space, the cables are long enough that you should be able to place it wherever you need it. This is one place I think the book kinda falls down, nothing is in color in the big book and even the quick setup is a little bit hard to comprehend what goes where. If your sound card doesn't have color coded plugs (like my new soundblaster doesn't, they're all gold) you need to identify which plug is line in and if you have speakers you should already know which is speaker out (might be a little more difficult if you've got a fancy theater setup, in that case I think the speaker output is only front speakers??)

Ease of installation?
I had no problems but I also run registry cleaners regularly and defrag my hard drives at least three times a month if I use my system a lot. These two procedures would save most people a whole bunch of headaches if they performed them regularly; especially the registry cleaner. If you'll note the dates on all the reviews that say they had problems they seem to all be early release, it looks like ATI has cured the problems that existed before (lets hope).

Graphics quality:
All I can say is WOW! One of my new more intensive games, Elder Scrolls Oblivion is happy as a clam with the new card, instead of the low rating it gave my old nvidia 6600 it rates the new card high quality and wow what a difference in the graphics, it's like a different game.

Other stuff:
The all in wonder is a tv tuner, a video capture device, a DVD player, etc. The catalyst disk activates everything on the device. I know what the pinnacle studio is but I'm not sure about what some of this other stuff does...more on that later. The package I bought from Dell included the all in wonder remote, not all packages come with the remote included. So far the remote is the only thing that doesn't seem to be working correctly, more on that later.

What I've played with so far:
I just got the card in the machine a few minutes ago and got all the spaghetti connected. I've used the TV function to watch a little TV and tried recording a little bit of something off the cartoon channel. I've already found one reason to hate the included software, it recognizes the "anti-recording" signal that some tv stations transmit these days. I had "thought" that I'd heard the supreme court had ruled this couldn't be done recently, guess I need to go look for that article--perhaps it was only temporary or they can do it until....... (this is a crock of crap if you ask me). I was test recording "Code Name Lyoko" a popular anime series and a box popped up saying I wasn't allowed to record and it was going to discontinue the record. The little bit it did let me record (about 2 minutes) looks good on playback, in fact it looks better than it did when just playing live in the tv box.

The TV display by default is really dark and the color is awful, pulling up the setup screen let me adjust the screen for a much better picture. Be sure that you use a short hiqh quality cable to connect to the cable source for the best picture, my short high quality cable doesn't reach so I've got to find a slightly longer one. The way too long one I've got on there now seems to be really degrading the tv signal a lot. There is a lot written about ATI's choice to go away from their old standby tv tuner to this smaller one (that doesn't suck up soo much space on the card), many folks say the quality just isn't there now and the delay between channel flips is quite noticeable.

What I think about it?
The graphics output is fantastic, this card is about the most that can be gotten out of a AGP card...period. I'm not even sure the X850 is available in AGP and it's supposedly not that much more performance over the X800 in this card. I know why they had to do the connector for the input/outputs the way they did, but if I had young kids or hyper pets I'd be really worried about that thing getting broken off by accident; it sticks straight out several inches from the back of the card. You can't have your machine right up against a wall or there will be no space for this connector to stick out, I really think ATI would have been smarter to angle it and not make it the way they did.

I think the instructions for plugging in the external connectors could have been a little bit better and when the boxes are stacked (as I have them it's hard to see the little raised icons that tell you what each plug is). I hate that big brother is interfering with what I choose to record, what in heck is the difference between this and a VCR other than it doesn't use tape? I'd heard the new dvd recorders work off that signal, this is a new thing that's been kept hush, hush so people don't get mad and tell them to stuff it. Well I guess I can hope I can find some software for recording that doesn't stoop to such political correctness. My old TV setup used an Adaptec VideoOH USB and windvr3, never had this problem there.

To close....if you want a hot video card and want to use your monitor as a TV and maybe do a bit of recording off your video camera, this is a great product. If you don't use the extra garbage then don't get the AIW version. Those that want absolute performance have already gone up to pciexpress or an SLI setup. AGP is dead but if you're not yet ready to upgrade your motherboard you'll have more than enough performance for at least a couple of years.

update: The remote control now works, it runs yet something else in the task tray, a good registry clean got it working correctly. The buttons on the remote are a little bit hard to figure out what does what but you'll get the hang of it. The remote requires software and a usb receiver plugged in. The remote receiver has a light that blinks when it receives key presses from the remote (kinda nice, tells you it's working) and has plugs on the side for some unknown function. The receiver is pretty big, I think I'm going to double sided tape it to the underside of the shelf or something, it gets in the way on the desk and has a antenna that sticks up off the top.

update: Just wanted to comment that if you use this card I hope you've got a few case fans helping to keep your computer case cool; my case temperature went up at least 5 degrees with this monster in there. The card itself has a pretty gigantic (for a video card) fan on it and the heatsink covers most, if not all of the video chip and memory components, I'm half tempted to run it with the side open and see what kind of temperatures are coming off that heatsink but haven't had a chance to do it.

update: more on the fcc broadcast flag issue. I was correct court rulings within the last year have found that the FCC had no authority to require all tuner cards and new tvs to recognize the broadcast flag. If I'm reading the articles I've found correctly it doesn't sound like there is even any authority for the broadcast flag to be used, but I'm no lawyer. The cartoon channel is using the flag and this product is honoring it. If the FCC's regulations would have been upheld it would have prohibited any tv card or tv that "didn't" recognize the flag from being manufactured in the US (when will this crap end). Since the FCC has been told to go jump (gee we still have some judges that don't have their heads stuffed someplace) I want to know when ATI is going to release the hardware fix to turn this off on this card--it sounds like the whole flag issue was meant more for HDTV than regular cable broadcasts, but it's also stopping records on regular cable broadcasts. If I'd known about this before I bought the card it would have given me pause. Like I said, from what I've read the flag sensing is a hardware issue and not something built into the recording software. Vote with your money, don't buy anything that restricts your long held right to fair use.

update: Just upgraded to windows xp 64bit, getting drivers to install was a PITA!!!!!!!! Finally found that it was necessary to have directx 9 installed before attempting to install the ATI catalyst drivers (even the newest ones) otherwise on the next reboot windows would hang forever in the twilight zone and not startup. Most games install direct x these days so all I did was install guild wars and it put the direct x in, after that the catalyst drivers went right on no issues, now, my only problem is that so far I don't have any other software operating.

More on the software issue: Apparently ATI keeps it a deep dark secret that they have not yet released Media Center software for this card that works on 64bit windows. After reading a couple of forums there are others with the same issue, apparently the software isn't out yet. Now this makes me a bit angry that they advertise 64 bit drivers and support but conveniently forget to mention that you can't use any of the functions of the card because they haven't gotten around to supporting it yet in the sofware they give you. This is aggravating to say the least, I'm investigating Nero Ultimate 7 to see if it can support this card, if it can I won't care so much about ATI's lack of honesty about 64 bit support.

update: If you're a Guild Wars Prophecies or Factions (game) fan then you may have problems with this card in that game. In my case NCsoft is blaming it on 64 bit windows and refusing to do anything for me however if you look around in forums you see many, many, many posts about video issues with a variety of ATI cards. I think the game has a hate going on for ATI but there were a few rare nvidia card issues as well.

update: Well as far as I can tell Nero Ultimate 7 is able to work with the tv tuner on the all in wonder, the quality wasn't "excellent" but it was ok. I'm starting to wonder if the card has a problem now the screen is always corrupted. I'm going to pop it in an old machine with windows 32 on it and see if I can get it working properly under 32 bit os, I would hope ATI's drivers are not that awful......(i.e. I really hope the card is defective). If it's defective it sure didn't last long.....barely a month.

update: The card did end up being defective. ATI's RMA process was painless, went on the web site filled out a form and sent it back, got a replacement card within a couple of weeks, no hassles no phone calls no baloney. New card so far running great however I've already updated the motherboard on my main machine to SLI pci express so this card is relegated to a backup machine. ATI still hasn't released media center for windows 64 bit it sounds like xp 64 professional has been pretty much abandoned in favor or work on vista. Hopefully once vista is dealt with it will be easier for them to back engineer the software for 64bit than to write a whole new package. Happy with the return process and now that it's back all seems to be working ok.