ATI X1900 All-in-Wonder

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/02/03/ati_aiw_x1900/1.html

 

As you note, this is a slightly odd board - what market is it really gunning for? The only people I can see buying this are Shuttle owners who want a quick-ish gaming card in their general purpose PC, with the option to watch Coronation Street while doing a bit of work in the evening.

Media Center PC owners will probably be looking at a fanless gfx card and dual digital tuners. Hardcore gamers have no need for TV functionality on their gaming rigs.

Will be interesting to see how well this sells.

 

Woohoo, its black

 

I'm not exactly sure, but I thought that the X1900s retained the 16 Pixel "pipelines" but increased the Shader count to 48, before it was something like a 1:1 ratio between pipes to shaders, now its 1:3... and this card is more for a media center oriented PC, something you put in your basement and hook up to a TV so you play all your downloaded movies on the big screen

 

Correct me If I'm wrong (and I usually am) but couldn't the AIW be used in conjunction with the Crossfire? In theory that would aleviate any performance issues.

 

Yeah, that is what i was instantly thinking, omg, whip this up with a crossfire card, and we're in business!

 

Would the crossfire xt card not be throttled back to the speeds of the AIW?

I thought that when you ran two cards in xfire they both ran at the speed of the slowest?

 

Yes.

 

I wonder if theres any binning going on with the worst cores going to the AIW or if they bin for the coolest cores etc. Overclocking should reveal these cores potential.

 

AFAIK, you can't - I'll try and confirm that though.

 

I've just had confirmation that this card will not work in CrossFire because both the CrossFire master card and the All-In-Wonder want to be the 'primary card' in the configuration. Essentially, what I'm saying is that they just don't want to get along and talk nicely.