WHAT'S HOT: The ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500DV comes with an outstanding set of features, more than any other current high-end graphics board: It includes two FireWire ports (for connecting digital video camcorders), composite- and S-Video-in and -out (for connecting to TVs, VCRs, or projectors), and even stereo audio-in and -out (so you can record audio and video at the same time). You also get DVI-out, a TV tuner, and software that allows the PC to act as a digital video recorder, taping live TV for later viewing.

WHAT'S NOT: Although this card performed adequately in most of our lower-resolution gaming tests, it slid below 60 frames per second at resolutions above 1024 by 768. If you don't need all of the board's multimedia features, you may find ATI's new budget entry, the Radeon 9000 Pro, to be more suitable--it consistently beat the Radeon 8500DV in our performance tests.

WHAT ELSE: For watching TV, ATI provides a radio frequency remote control that can work through walls. A small module plugs into your PC's USB port to relay the remote commands.

To test image quality, a three-person panel watched demos of our test applications and observed each card's ability to render complex textures and to display colors and contrast. We saw little difference in image quality between this power board and the value cards.

UPSHOT: Consider the Radeon All-In-Wonder 8500DV if you want to turn your PC into a full-on multimedia machine with TV recording and video editing capabilities.

SUMMARY

ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500DV ATI Radeon 8500 chip, 64MB of DDR SDRAM, 400-MHz RAMDAC; DVI-out, dual-monitor capability, audio-in and -out, S-Video-in and -out, composite-in and -out, IEEE 1394; DVD software, video editing software. $199 905/882-2600 www.ati.com