ATI Unveils All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro

ATI is following the release of its cutting-edge Radeon graphics boards with an All-In-Wonder version that also provides video capture and editing capabilities in a high-performance package. The All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro, unveiled this week, is scheduled to ship in mid-November at a suggested retail price of $499.

"It offers the same clock speeds and performance as the Radeon 9700 Pro," says Blair Birmingham, ATI's group product manager for multimedia products. "We've been able to build this All-In-Wonder on that firm base."

That base includes full hardware support for DirectX 9 (although no games yet take advantage of DirectX 9), 325-MHz core clock speed, and 128MB of DDR memory, part of the Radeon 9700 family of graphics cards introduced in July. Plus, the card offers support for 8X AGP, which is backward compatible.

NVidia has announced AGP 8X versions of its current GeForce4 Ti line. New to the ATI chips is a technology called FullStream, designed to improve the quality of streaming Internet video.

In addition to the speed and performance, this All-In-Wonder includes all the extras that help it live up to the name. The rear of the card offers connectivity to a variety of audio and video devices, including a camcorder, cable signal, Dolby Digital receiver, and now HDTV-ready TVs.

For Diverse Interests

The All-In-Wonder line should draw interest from three types of users, Birmingham says. "First, there's gaming enthusiasts. We never want to leave them out with the All-In-Wonder, and this card in particular offers them the fastest graphics you can get, with all the latest pixel and graphics shaders, and support for DirectX 9," he says.

ATI also hopes to draw the home theater audience. "They will certainly appreciate it. There's the S/PDIF [digital] output, the non-interlaced DVD playback, the personal video recorder, and support for big screen gaming," Birmingham says. "We've gotten great feedback from users playing their flight simulators on their projection screens."

And finally, the video editing camp should be interested. "We bundle in the full version of Pinnacle Studio 8 that would normally cost you $129," Birmingham says. "Right there, that more than offsets the price difference between the Radeon 9700 Pro and the All-In-Wonder."

The All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro also includes the Remote Wonder, ATI's remote control that lets users handle the software interface--while watching a DVD movie or recording a TV show--without having to input commands through their keyboard or mouse.

"You can also download patches that let you control PowerPoint, WinAmp, and other applications with the Remote Wonder," says Birmingham.

Challenges Personal Cinema

ATI traditionally follows the release of a new generation of graphics cards with an All-In-Wonder version about a month later, says Peter Glaskowsky, senior analyst for 3D graphics and multimedia at MicroDesign Resources.

"The All-In-Wonder is a great card," he says, comparing it to NVidia's Personal Cinema product, released earlier this year. The Personal Cinema is a separate unit bundled with graphics cards and includes some of the same types of functionality in a connectable device.

"NVidia wanted to be able to give avid gamers the capability to capture video, and so on, giving them the best of both worlds," he says. To do so, NVidia added video capture functions to its GeForce product.

"ATI took the other approach, adding best-in-the-world graphics to its video capture product," Glaskowsky says. "You're not giving up any graphics performance to obtain the video capabilities."

While $500 is a lot to pay for even the most high-end graphics board with all the video capture extras, the All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro definitely handles everything. With it, you can even put TiVo functionality inside your souped-up gaming PC.