by HH Editor — Tuesday, May 27, 2003

ATI All-In-Wonder RADEON 9000 Pro

ATI AllInWonder RADEON 9000 Pro - Page 1

ATI All-In-Wonder 9000 Pro
Multimedia and Gaming Power on a Budget

By: Jeff Bouton
May 25th, 2003

There are lots of companies on the market that develop hardware to bring TV to the PC but ATi is one that stands out ahead of the pack somewhat. ATi has been making TV Tuner cards for many years now and their experience really shows. Whether we're talking about their stand alone "VE" series TV cards or the versatile "All-In-Wonder" series, which combines a video card with TV capabilities, ATi has managed to perfect the process better than most and deliver top quality on screen output. Offering solid products loaded with multimedia features is ATi's game and they play to win. In fact, the All-In-Wonder family of video cards have a long history that has helped them become the benchmark by which all other TV Multi-Function cards have to measure up to. The product line continues to evolve with ever increasing features and functionality, to satisfy the casual user or the dedicated gamer looking for high-end TV capability.

One way for ATi to remain ahead of the curve is to give their products features that no one else comes close to. For example, ever since the introduction of the All-In-Wonder Radeon 7500 series, each All-In-Wonder comes with a "Remote Wonder". The Remote Wonder gives the user a slew of RF remote control features without adding a lot to the cost of the product. We were particularly surprised when ATi decided to include the Remote Wonder with the budget All-In-Wonder of the time. What one would expect to be a perk reserved for the higher end Video/TV hybrids, ATi decided to make available to users on a budget. ATi has kept that tradition alive with their latest budget All-In-Wonder offering that we'll cover for you today, the All-In-Wonder Radeon 9000 Pro.

Features of the All-In-Wonder RADEON 9000 Pro

Something Familiar with a Little Extra

Click to Enlarge

GRAPHICS TECHNOLOGY

MEMORY CONFIGURATION

64MB of Double Data Rate SDRAM clocked at 540MHz

3D GRAPHICS FEATURES

Four parallel rendering pipelines process up to 1 billion pixels per second

SMARTSHADER? technology

Full support for DirectX 8.1 programmable pixel and vertex shaders in hardware
1.4 pixel shaders support up to 6 textures per rendering pass
1.1 vertex shaders support vertex programs up to 128 instructions
Complete feature set also supported in OpenGL via extensions
Programmable shaders provide enhanced 3D effects in over 100 existing and upcoming game titles

SMOOTHVISION?

Image quality enhancement features for Direct3D? and OpenGL applications
Programmable full-scene anti-aliasing
Supports 2 to 6 samples
Performance and quality modes
Advanced anisotropic filtering
Supports 2 to 16 samples
Bandwidth-saving algorithm enables this feature with minimal performance cost

CHARISMA ENGINE? II

High performance 2nd generation hardware transform and lighting engine

HYPERZ? II

Lossless Z-Buffer Compression and Fast Z-Buffer Clear increase memory bandwidth by up to 25%

DISPLAY FEATURES

Dual integrated display controllers
Drive two displays simultaneously with independent resolutions and refresh rates
HYDRAVISION? software provides complete control over multi-display configurations with a user-friendly interface
Dual integrated 10-bit per channel palette DACs operating at up to 400MHz
Integrated DVI-compliant 165MHz TMDS transmitter supports resolutions up to WUXGA (1920x1200) Integrated TV-Out support up to 1024x768 resolution

VIDEO FEATURES

VIDEO IMMERSION? II delivers industry-leading video playback
FULLSTREAM? Hardware accelerated de-blocking of Internet video streams
Integrated MPEG-2 decode including iDCT and motion compensation:
All format DTV/HDTV decode
Top quality DVD with lowest CPU usage
YUV to RGB color space conversion
Back-end scaler delivers top quality playback
4-tap horizontal and vertical filtering
Upscaling and downscaling
Filtered display of images up to 1920 pixels wide
Unique per-pixel adaptive de-interlacing feature combines the best elements of the ?bob? and ?add-field? (weave) techniques
Hardware mirroring for flipping video images in video conferencing systems
Supports 8-bit alpha blending and video keying for effective overlay of video and graphics

GENERAL FEATURES

Comprehensive 2X and 4X AGP support
Compatible with AGP 8X universal motherboards
High performance dual-channel 128-bit DDR memory interface supports 32/64/128MB configurations
Fully compliant with PC 2002 requirements
Optimized for Pentium4 SSE2 and AMD Athlon? 3Dnow! processor instructions
Supports optional THEATER? 200 companion chip for NTSC/PAL/ SECAM video capture
Highly optimized 128-bit 2D engine with support for new WindowsXP GDI extensions

TV & DVD Features

Stereo TV tuner with 125 channels
TV-ON-DEMAND?: Pause live TV or record live broadcasts and get instant replays.
Use the integrated Gemstar GUIDE Plus+? Interactive Program Guide* to view and search TV listings. Schedule and record programs at the click of a mouse.
TV features including TV Magazine*, Hot Words* real-time word notification, and zoom & pan. Watch TV while browsing the web. Click through a translucent live TV window to access your desktop ? no more moving the TV window to get to your work!
Control the features of the ALL-IN-WONDER® 9000 PRO from another room in the house with the radio frequency remote control
Industry-leading DVD playback with AC-3 Digital Audio** output to enable Dolby® Digital 5.1 surround sound
ATI?s VIDEO IMMERSION? II technology integrates industry-leading digital video features for unprecedented video quality
HYDRAVISION? software enables you to display information on a TV and monitor at the same time

ALSO INCLUDED

Remote Wonder
YPrPb Component Output dongle
Multimedia Center version 8.1

In typical ATi fashion, the All-In-Wonder 9000 Pro is a complete multimedia package. The All-In-Wonder 9000 Pro package contained a comprehensive collection of documentation and hardware that aims to please with its straight forward approach to installation and use. A clear, detailed manual is included for the video/TV-Card, covering all of the functionality for each component. Another separate manual is included which covers the proper set up and usage of the versatile Remote Wonder. To help the novice get a clear picture on the complete set up of the package, an excellent quick reference guide is provided which shows how each component of the All-In-Wonder is supposed to be connected. To top things off, a copy of Pinnacle Studio 8 was included for handling some of the more advanced video editing tasks some users may have in mind. Pinnacle Studio 8 is an excellent addition to the All-In-Wonder package, offering powerful video editing functionality with a simple, clean interface.

All of the necessary hardware is provided to take full advantage of the video card's TV input and Output capabilities. While the card comes equipped to support DVI-I, ATi also provides a DVI-I to VGA adapter so support users with VGA monitors. The ATi Input Adapter is included which enables all of the video cards video and audio input capabilities. The unit comes with four ports which connect S-Video or Composite video, as well as separate left and right audio inputs from an external source. Conversely, a four head adapter is also provided for TV out capabilities, sporting connections for S-Video, Composite Video, S/PDIF and analog audio out. The perfect compliment to all of this functionality is the extremely versatile Remote Wonder which we'll cover in the pages ahead.

ATi has put together what appears to be a package that is loaded with multimedia features and has the promise of fair gaming potential as well. Before we put this card to the test in the gaming arena, let's take a closer look at the All-In-Wonder Radeon 9000 Pro itself and the Remote Wonder.

The Card, Remote Wonder and More...