AMD Releases ATI All-In-Wonder HD Card

Sunnyvale (CA) - It has been a while since ATI offered a new version of its All-in-Wonder graphics/TV tuner card combination. AMD revived the product series with the ATI All-In-Wonder HD, which replaces the still offered AiW X1900 with a faster graphics core a much improved TV tuner chip and HDTV capabilities.

I had to think a bit about the last AiW card and ATI’s struggles with HDTV at the time. Just for the record, the X1900 version was released in January 2006, a few months before the ATI’s acquisition through AMD was announced. 30 months later, there is a new generation that hopes to build on successful AiW cards and maybe not so much on the lukewarm reception the X1900 received back then.

The All-In-Wonder HD has been updated with a PCIe 2.0 interface and upgraded to deal with the high-definition era. The card is now based on the Theater Pro 650 chip (the X1900 was based on the 200 version) and supports free over-the-air HDTV playback as well as HDTV and analog TV recording.

Also included is ClearQAM, a hardware MPEG-2 encoder (as well as VC-1 and H.264 acceleration), an adaptive 3D comb filter as well as a native HDMI interface. Blu-ray can be played back in full 1080p resolution.

The graphics chip is based on the previous generation 600-series 55 nm graphics core, clocked at 725 MHz (memory : 600 MHz). AMD claims that the graphics performance of the card will beat a Radeon HD 3650 by 5 to 15% in popular games.

The MSRP of the ATI All-In-Wonder HD is $199.