Digital Home Thoughts: AnandTech Reviews ATI's X1800 XL All-In-Wonder

"While still having some trouble keeping pace with NVIDIA, ATI has been doing well lately with quality graphics solutions like the X800 GTO. The X1800 series has also shown promise, although there are still issues with the price, which doesn't quite reflect performance with respect to the competition (specifically the 7800) right now. The X1800 XL is showing up between $370 and $400, while we can find the 7800 GT at prices between $320 and $370. That said, as prices hopefully fall, the X1800 XL looks to be a good high-end choice from ATI for the holidays. Many are familiar with ATI's All-In-Wonder series of graphics cards, which offer not only gaming power, but also various multimedia features such as TV playback and recording on your PC. ATI has released a few different versions of the All-In-Wonder, and for the most part, the multimedia aspects of them are similar. Recently though, we got a chance to look at the newest edition of the A-I-W, the X1800 XL A-I-W, and we are impressed with what we saw."



While I have always been a big fan of the AIW cards, the article mentions something that stuck out for me - for a TV focused PC who's primary use will be at the center of a home theatre, a full media center PC would be a better fit than just shoving an A-I-W card in the box. This is the kind of solution for someone who mainly wants to use their computer as a computer with a little TV functionality on the side in a window on a computer monitor or recording shows in the background to archive them or watch them later. Interesting.