It Was Worth It.
Written: Apr 30 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Insanely fast 3D graphics, video and TV capture capabilities, good bundled software
Cons: No dual monitor support, slightly buggy video editing
The Bottom Line: If you can afford it, this is an excellent card to own. It's All-In-Wonderful! ;)
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| gothhenge's Full Review: ATI ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO, (128 MB) AGP Video Car... |
I did it.
I took the plunge.
For someone like me, that wasn't an easy decision to make. Sure, it'd be nice to have the latest and greatest equipment, but I just don't have the money to go out and make a huge investment like this without seriously thinking about it first. But after having had my GeForce2 for over 2 years, I felt like I needed a change. And I was not disappointed.
My complete system upgrade included not only a new video card, but a new motherboard (with 8x AGP support to fully utilize the new card's capabilities) and a new CPU (because having a video card that's faster than your processor is just sad). The results were worth it - I went from a benchmark in the 3,500 range to nearly 14,000 (using 3DMark2001 SE, available for free download at futuremark.com). I'm going to limit my review to the video card, though my CPU (AMD 2500 Barton with 333 MHz FSB) and motherboard (Biostar M7VIT) are worth mentioning for the sake of the benchmarks.
More than just a video card, the All-In-Wonder retail package includes a huge assortment of cables, including this nifty little purple audio/video input box (complete with adhesive velcro so you can attach it to your case, monitor, desk, or whatever). The All-In-Wonder accepts composite, S-video, or coaxial input, so even an ancient VCR (or better yet, your cable TV or satellite) can plug in to it. And, more importantly, it has, as Weird Al so aptly put it, "the clocks that rocks."
The card itself is indeed a wonder, as everyone probably knows by now, so let's focus our attention on the other things that come in the box.
The Good.
ATI's All-In-Wonder package comes with an abundance of software, including Bethesda Softworks's gorgeous RPG, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Pinnacle's Studio 8 video editing suite, and Matchware's Mediator 7. Morrowind is an excellent choice to bundle with this card. Its superb graphics are perfect for showing off the 9700's insanely good 3D capabilities. Studio 8 is a very powerful yet easy-to-use non-linear video editor (similar to Media 100) that lets you edit your home movies with ease, adding transitions, voiceovers, background music, and titles, all with a few mouse clicks. It even automatically detects the beginning and end of scenes based on the source video's content. And Mediator 7 is a critically acclaimed competitor to Macromedia's Director.
ATI also includes a nifty little remote control, called the Remote Wonder, that has more buttons on it than the remote for my DirecTV satellite. This thing lets you do a lot from your couch, including moving your mouse, increasing/decreasing volume, surfing the web, playing DVDs, and watching TV. You can even program it to control your TV. With this card, the remote, and the included GuidePlus software, you no longer need a TiVo; you can use your computer as one ... when you're not too busy playing Morrowind, that is.
Installing the card was a breeze. ATI's 4-step startup instructions were easy enough to follow, and installing the drivers and software required all of 3 mouse clicks. Of course, I had to update my motherboard's drivers first, which one may look at as an inconvenience, but as a computer geek, I like having all my drivers up-to-date anyway. ;)
The Bad.
The All-In-Wonder is capable of displaying on a DVI or VGA monitor and a TV simultaneously; however, this card, unlike the plain Radeon, cannot support 2 computer monitors at once. Not that I have a need to do this, but I'd like to be able to in the future.
Also, I have several complaints with Studio 8. While it is an excellent program overall, it is quite disturbing that it cannot take full advantage of the All-In-Wonder's A/V input box. You must connect your audio source directly to the sound card, and the connector required to do this is not included in the box (practically the only thing that they do not include). I would have liked to see an option to get the audio from the S-Video or Composite audio inputs.
Also, be careful if you are using Studio 8's automatic scene detection. Every time the shot changes, a new "scene" is added (think of this as a "divider" in your movie's source file; it doesn't create multiple files, just a .scn index file to chop up the movie). It's interesting to note that I used this to edit the video footage of my wedding, and every time someone took a flash photo it thought it was a new "scene." If you try to edit too many scenes together, the program will crash. How many is "too many"? I estimate about 200. This isn't really an issue unless you are recording a TV show or movie, where a new scene is created on average once every 3 seconds.
The Ugly.
What ugly? This card is beautiful! Scoring higher benchmarks than practically every other card on the market (including the new, more expensive, GeForce FX), the 9700 Pro is the card to have. And if you can afford to drop $300 to $350 on a card, then the 9700 All-In-Wonder is an excellent purchase. If you need to run 2 monitors on your system, then get the Radeon, but if that's not an issue, then the All-In-Wonder has much greater functionality.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 346
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Epinions.com ID:
gothhenge
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Member: Chris Lyons
Location: Aiken, SC, USA
Reviews written: 12
Trusted by: 5 members
About Me:
I'm a perfectionist. If you don't give VH, tell me why! I'll fix it!
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