Digital Home Thoughts: Review of ATI All-In-Wonder 2006

"If you want to add Media Center-like capabilities to your PC and want to give it a mid-life graphics performance boost as well, the ATI All-In-Wonder 2006 is a good choice. It gives you a new 3D-capable graphics card (with 256MB of onboard memory), a TV tuner, media-control software, and a remote control. The upgrade is both affordable ($199 direct) and idiot-proof to install. Most users can be watching TV on their PCs in half an hour, an hour at worst if you have to hunt around for screwdrivers and deal with cases that don't easily slide shut."



I first came across the AIW several years ago, it was the AIW version of the ATI 8500 (I am sure most of you remember that card) and it was fantastic. I was able to not only get all the TV, TV-tuner, capture and media capabilities of the AIW, but was also getting the great performance of the 8500 for video games. Interesting thing to note here is that the AIW 2006 is based on the ATI Radeon 9600, which is no shabby card, but then it is also not an X800 or X850. So if you really want the top of the line TV tuner card then you are looking for the All-in-Wonder X800 XT. But if you are in the market for a budget video card with extended TV and multimedia capabilities then for $199 this is a very good deal.