ATI All-In-Wonder 2006 PCI Express Edition Review :: The 2006 A-I-W

The A-I-W 2006 PCI Express Edition card is similar in many respects to a standard X1300 Pro in look and layout with a couple of exceptions noted below. The card is slightly longer than the ASUS X1300 Pro I have in the test labs, due to the inclusion of the Microtune TV Tuner. The cooling fan covers the VPU and the heatsink covers the majority of the rest of the video card.

Card Front

Card rear

The A-I-W 2006 PCI Express card is of course a PCI Express native card. Early NVIDIA cards required a bridge chip to operate on the new bus, but all ATI cards were PCI Express native from the beginning. One advantage of being built on the 90nm process is the decreased power and heat requirements, allowing the A-I-W to operate without more power than the PCI Express x16 slot provides.

fan power

Rear of PCB

PCI Express connector

The input and output bracket on the card is much like the A-I-W X1800XL's I/O. The card has two connectors, one for the TV antenna or cable antenna hook up and one for the FM radio antenna (not included with the card I received), a dongle to attach the input output block and VGA connector and the TV Out.

I/O

Side view of I/O

One thing ATI hasn't changed on their A-I-W cards in a long time is the Theater chip they use. The Theater 200 was first introduced with the RADEON 9700 Pro, but it provides most of the features that a video card needs for video decoding today. I'm sure in 2006 ATI will introduce another chip to replace the Theater 200 in A-I-W cards, but today all A-I-W cards sport this chip.