ATI's All-In-Wonder X1900 Performance And DVD Decoding Quality
by Josh Venning on February 10, 2006 8:45 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
It's nice to know that the problems ATI have had in the past with getting a product out on launch date are a thing of the past. We saw many of these AIW X1900s on sale on the day of release with a hefty price tag of around $500. The price has gone down slightly since then, and you can currently get one of these cards for about $455, which is still fairly expensive. Given the capabilities of this card however, the price makes sense. The All-In-Wonder X1900 is the AIW for those who want the best possible performance in games, while still being able to record and watch video on their computer. We've mentioned before that these cards are somewhat specialized and a large part of their attractiveness is their gaming and multimedia features in one easy-to-use package. Many users might opt for the lower price or better features of having a separate graphics card and home theater card instead.
We've seen now how well ATI does with DVD processing, and the benchmarks show that ATI does a better job at this overall than NVIDIA. Here are the final HQV benchmark scores.
ATI: 111 NVIDIA: 68
These numbers represent the total numbers for each test added together for each card. As we can see ATI scores better overall than NVIDIA, which is interesting considering NVIDIA's PureVideo decoding was consistently better than ATI's software in the past. What is important to keep in mind however, is that certain tests could be considered more or less important to individual users depending on what types of video they will be dealing with. For example, while ATI gets a better overall score, NVIDIA still does a better job at picture detail (sharpness) than ATI, so that might be a factor to consider when looking for a decoder. Also, some of the tests may not apply at all to your situation, like the mixed film with horizontal and vertical text. If you don't watch news channels with scrolling text you may never have a need for this option.
Where NVIDIA loses the most points is in the Film Cadence tests, as well as the Noise Reduction test. We can conclude then that these benchmarks show that ATI has a wider set of capabilities in their DVD decoding than NVIDIA does. Add to that the fact that ATI's DVD decoder is free to ATI customers while NVIDIA's PureVideo decoder costs an extra $30 and ATI definitely has a winning solution on their hands.
With ATI leading now in the "king-of-the-hill" game of graphics solutions, we now look to NVIDIA for a response, while wondering what's in store for graphics in the semi-long term. If performance continues to increase at the rate that it has been, we aren't sure how game software will be able to keep up. We are always happy when we see advancements in technology, but the huge sizes of some of these high end cards make us think better efficiency might be good direction for graphics hardware to move toward. But of course, advancements in hardware performance will always leave the door open for game software to advance, which is good news for everyone.
It's nice to know that the problems ATI have had in the past with getting a product out on launch date are a thing of the past. We saw many of these AIW X1900s on sale on the day of release with a hefty price tag of around $500. The price has gone down slightly since then, and you can currently get one of these cards for about $455, which is still fairly expensive. Given the capabilities of this card however, the price makes sense. The All-In-Wonder X1900 is the AIW for those who want the best possible performance in games, while still being able to record and watch video on their computer. We've mentioned before that these cards are somewhat specialized and a large part of their attractiveness is their gaming and multimedia features in one easy-to-use package. Many users might opt for the lower price or better features of having a separate graphics card and home theater card instead.
We've seen now how well ATI does with DVD processing, and the benchmarks show that ATI does a better job at this overall than NVIDIA. Here are the final HQV benchmark scores.
ATI: 111 NVIDIA: 68
These numbers represent the total numbers for each test added together for each card. As we can see ATI scores better overall than NVIDIA, which is interesting considering NVIDIA's PureVideo decoding was consistently better than ATI's software in the past. What is important to keep in mind however, is that certain tests could be considered more or less important to individual users depending on what types of video they will be dealing with. For example, while ATI gets a better overall score, NVIDIA still does a better job at picture detail (sharpness) than ATI, so that might be a factor to consider when looking for a decoder. Also, some of the tests may not apply at all to your situation, like the mixed film with horizontal and vertical text. If you don't watch news channels with scrolling text you may never have a need for this option.
Where NVIDIA loses the most points is in the Film Cadence tests, as well as the Noise Reduction test. We can conclude then that these benchmarks show that ATI has a wider set of capabilities in their DVD decoding than NVIDIA does. Add to that the fact that ATI's DVD decoder is free to ATI customers while NVIDIA's PureVideo decoder costs an extra $30 and ATI definitely has a winning solution on their hands.
With ATI leading now in the "king-of-the-hill" game of graphics solutions, we now look to NVIDIA for a response, while wondering what's in store for graphics in the semi-long term. If performance continues to increase at the rate that it has been, we aren't sure how game software will be able to keep up. We are always happy when we see advancements in technology, but the huge sizes of some of these high end cards make us think better efficiency might be good direction for graphics hardware to move toward. But of course, advancements in hardware performance will always leave the door open for game software to advance, which is good news for everyone.
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ayersmj - Saturday, February 11, 2006 - link
I am looking to build a Media Center PC. I need a card that has a YPbPr input and can be paired with a SB audigy to record the signal coming off my Directv HD Reciever. Tivo doesnt have a PVR yet that can work with this and I was kind of hoping to build one myself. Would this card allow me to do this? If not, what do I need. The MIT MyHD cards will not work as they do not have either a DVI input or a YPbPr input.Thanks.
PeteRoy - Friday, February 10, 2006 - link
Hey put the old way of showing benchmark figures, this is too confusing and hard to read!Pastuch - Friday, February 10, 2006 - link
"If performance continues to increase at the rate that it has been, we aren't sure how game software will be able to keep up. We are always happy when we see advancements in technology, but the huge sizes of some of these high end cards make us think better efficiency might be good direction for graphics hardware to move toward."I'm so tired of reading comments like these! Look at the benches of Fear and try to tell me that graphics power is in abundance. You have to buy a $600 graphics card to play the game at a decent framerate on pretty much any LCD monitor sold today. Even if you buy a low end 17 inch LCD you are going to be running 1280x1024 because that is your monitors native resolution and anything less results in a much poorer picture.
With the number of features built into most motherboards I cant see any problem with filling the extra space with graphics cards. You dont need 5 PCI slots. The charm of the ATX standard is and always has been adaptability.
P.S. The price of graphics cards is totally rediculous these days. The cheapest 7800gtx 512mb you can buy in Canada is $899 on sale! The x1900xtx can be found for around $680. I hope Nvidia doesnt continue this crazy pricing in their spring release.
flashbacck - Friday, February 10, 2006 - link
Where does one get the ATI DVD decoder? Does that only come with the AIW cards?LoneWolf15 - Friday, February 10, 2006 - link
It's taking ATI an awfully long time to figure out how to put the Theater 550 on All-In-Wonder cards in place of the Theater 200. Until they can do it, and thus give us hardware MPEG-2 encoding when recording video, I'd rather pay to have both a video card, and a separate tuner card (like my Hauppauge WinTV PVR 150) in my system. The All-In-Wonder X1900 is supposed to be the Cadillac; why are the video recording features more akin to a Chevy?Questar - Friday, February 10, 2006 - link
Is this your attempt at a troll, or are you just uninformed?This card has MPEG 1/2/4 hardware encoding. ATI has had hardware encoding on the AIW card for over a year.
http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx1900/aiwx1900/f...">http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx1900/aiwx1900/f...
LoneWolf15 - Monday, February 13, 2006 - link
Gee, thanks for your insulting reply. It is possible to be informative without being insulting, you know.LoneWolf (the "troll" who owns a Radeon X800XL and an ATI TV Wonder PCI)
Questar - Monday, February 13, 2006 - link
How can you own an X800XL and not know it does hardware mpeg encoding?Questar - Monday, February 13, 2006 - link
Oh, I get it, you didn't get the AIW version.Hmmmmmm....
ianken - Monday, February 13, 2006 - link
None of the ATI cards do HW based MPEG2 (or any other sort) of encoding. At least not yet. ATI has demoed their AVC codec, of which the released version of the demo does not actually use the hardware and produce horrendous quality becuasr they skip most of the AVC codec features to attain high speeds.To see this all you need to do is compare CPU load of teh AIW -vs- the ATI 550 Elite and see that the AIW is not using hardware of any kind.