Over the past few months we have seen a myriad of video cards reviewed here at GruntvillE, based on chipsets from both nVidia and ATI. We have looked at mid-range and high-end cards from a variety of vendors and put them through the paces. Anyone who has been keeping up with them knows that I am a big fan of nVidia based cards. I’ve also stated in the Dawg Pound that I would not use an ATI card until one was built by Asus. Well, as we all know that time came and over the past year ATI has gained my respect again. The turnaround began with their production of technically excellent cards and (this is the key) stable drivers. However, there was always one exception to that “rule”, the All-in-Wonder line of cards.

The All-in-Wonder line of cards from ATI are special because they mate the performance of the ATI card it is based upon with video capture capability and a TV Tuner. Those who want to build a HTPC (Home Theater PC) or a Tivo-style PVR (Personal Video Recorder), this is a dream come true. Where you used to have to purchase two cards, you can now use only one.

Now, this isn’t something new at ATI, they have been doing this since at least the days of the Radeon 7500 chipset with the All-in-Wonder VE card. This makes the AIW 9800 Pro simply the latest, and most powerful, of the AIW line. There have been AIW cards based upon the 9000, 9200, 9700, 9700 Pro, 9600, 9600 Pro, and 9600 XT chipsets as well. For more details on the entire line you can check the ATI website.

I have always looked over to the ATI camp and wished that nVidia would come out with a card similar to the AIW, but they never have. And that’s too bad for them, because as they have been dabbling in other technologies ATI has had time to perfect the AIW concept over several generations of cards. And now that they have solid drivers, there is no reason not to check out the AIW 9800 Pro. So let’s do just that…