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Which All-in-Wonder to buy?
I want to purchase an All-in-Wonder card and would like some advice as
to which one to buy. My needs are pretty simple: - primarily to allow me to get rid of my TV (small apartment) - TiVo-like features would be nice - not much gaming (I have an XBox) - WinXP Pro combatibility - built-in sound would be nice, otherwise I'll buy a $50 soundblaster I don't want to spend more than $200, so the latest and greatest are out. Any thoughts on what the best bang for the buck is? thanks, eric |
#3
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You basically are looking at the Radeon 9000 All-in Wonder. The next model
up is the 9800 AIW: $449. -- DaveW "eric" wrote in message om... I want to purchase an All-in-Wonder card and would like some advice as to which one to buy. My needs are pretty simple: - primarily to allow me to get rid of my TV (small apartment) - TiVo-like features would be nice - not much gaming (I have an XBox) - WinXP Pro combatibility - built-in sound would be nice, otherwise I'll buy a $50 soundblaster I don't want to spend more than $200, so the latest and greatest are out. Any thoughts on what the best bang for the buck is? thanks, eric |
#4
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"J.Clarke" wrote in message t...
On 2 Oct 2003 15:01:35 -0700 (eric) wrote: I want to purchase an All-in-Wonder card and would like some advice as to which one to buy. My needs are pretty simple: - primarily to allow me to get rid of my TV (small apartment) - TiVo-like features would be nice - not much gaming (I have an XBox) - WinXP Pro combatibility - built-in sound would be nice, otherwise I'll buy a $50 soundblaster I don't want to spend more than $200, so the latest and greatest are out. Any thoughts on what the best bang for the buck is? None of the all-in-wonders has built in sound--don't buy a $50 soundblaster, buy a $50 Turtle Beach Santa Cruz if you're buying a $50 board. Any current-production All-in-Wonder will give you pretty much the same capabilities--they all work with the current driver set and that's where most of the functionality comes. Best bet right now would be to wait a few weeks for the 9600 All-In-Wonder to ship--won't quite hit your $200 price point but it will come pretty close. If you don't want to wait, then your best bet for under $200 is the 9000 All-In-Wonder. You don't say what you have now--there may be other alternatives. thanks, eric -- Thanks for the ideas. As for what I have now...nothing. Its a bit of a story if you're interested: I got a "good deal" on a Compaq with no sound or video boards - just on the motherboard. I bought a Cornea monitor with a TV tuner built-in thinking that would suffice for my TV needs, but the TV picture quality is horrible - fuzzy with freakish colors. The XBox looks like crap plugged into it, too. The analog computer mode on the monitor is perfect though, so my thinking is I'll get a card like the All-in-Wonder and not mess with the monitor's TV settings at all. If I'd known this from the start I would have saved $100 and gotten a cheaper monitor without the tuner, but live and learn. My other problem is I blew away the Win XP Home that came on the Compaq and installed XP Pro, but when I went to Compaq to get drivers for the sound, video and USB controllers I was told they weren't available. They obviously have them because they ship them with new units, but they don't make them available for download, in effect telling me I can never upgrade my OS. but that's another problem, and another lesson learned - never buy a Compaq/HP product again. From now on I'll just build my own systems. Thanks for the advice on the Turtle Beach, too. eric |
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"DaveW" wrote in message news:6T2fb.23870$%h1.12990@sccrnsc02... You basically are looking at the Radeon 9000 All-in Wonder. The next model up is the 9800 AIW: $449. -- DaveW Or the Radeon 9800SE AIW. Which cost considerable less than a full blown 9800Pro AIW. IMHO his best bet is the 9800SE AIW. It provides full DX9 support, decent gameplay (on par with a 9600Pro), has the same TV/video capabilities as the 9800pro AIW at an affordable price. .... and if he can enable the 8 pipelines then it's a bargain at the current going rate. Manu T |
#7
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"eric" wrote in message
m... I bought a Cornea monitor with a TV tuner built-in thinking that would suffice for my TV needs, but the TV picture quality is horrible - fuzzy with freakish colors. The one question here is, was the monitor completely at fault or is there also a cable TV quality issue? I'll warn you now that the AIW much prefers a strong, clear signal, and even then won't look as good as a "real" TV (but still more than acceptable). - Daniel |
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