ATI All In Wonder 9700 Pro Review
The Fastest 3D in a Multimedia Package

By: Chris Angelini
November 4th, 2002

Back in September, ATI gave us a peek at a project on which its multimedia team had been working.  Dubbed the All in Wonder RADEON 9700 Pro, we knew it would be incorporating the R300 Visual Processing Unit (VPU).  Imagine our surprise when ATI also divulged that the 3D core would probably be running at the same frequency as its flagship RADEON 9700 Pro card.  Typically, All In Wonder variants, when first introduced to the market, had to be scaled back in clock speed a bit - but not this one.   From there, the preview only got better. Not only would the core be operating at 325MHz, but it would also include 128MB of DDR memory effectively clocked at 620MHz, the RF Remote Wonder, a YPrPb Component output adapter, and the cables necessary to connect the All in Wonder to various A/V inputs and outputs.

ATI has gone virtually unchallenged in the all in one multimedia graphics market.  NVIDIA has dabbled in it with the Personal Cinema and Matrox was known once-upon-a-time for the Marvel G450 eTV, but neither manufacturer has been able to shine against the backdrop of ATIs hardware feature list and software integration.  With its prior incarnation, the All in Wonder RADEON 8500, ATI dominated its target market.  However, NVIDIA held a lead in 3D performance with its GeForce4 Ti 4600 Personal Cinema.  ATI has seemingly decimated that advantage with the All in Wonder RADEON 9700 Pro.

Features of the All In Wonder RADEON 9700 Pro
ATi's Fully DX9 Compliant Rendering Engine

Click image for closer look

GRAPHICS TECHNOLOGY

  • RADEON 9700 Visual Processing Unit (VPU) clocked at 325MHz

MEMORY CONFIGURATION

  • 128MB of double data rate SDRAM clocked at 310MHz

3D GRAPHICS FEATURES

  • Eight parallel rendering pipelines

  • Four parallel geometry engines

  • High precision 10-bit per channel frame buffer support

  • 256-bit DDR memory interface

  • AGP 8X support

-SMARTSHADER 2.0

  • Full support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 programmable pixel and vertex shaders in hardware

  • 2.0 Pixel Shaders support up to 16 textures per rendering pass

  • 2.0 Vertex Shaders support vertex programs up to 1024 instructions with flow control

  • New 128-bit per pixel floating point color formats

  • Multiple Render Target (MRT) support

  • Shadow volume rendering acceleration

  • Complete feature set also supported in OpenGL via extensions

-SMOOTHVISION 2.0

  • State-of-the-art full-scene anti-aliasing

  • Supports 2x, 4x, and 6x modes with programmable sample patterns

  • Advanced anisotropic filtering

  • Supports up to 16 bilinear samples (in performance mode) or trilinear samples (in quality mode) per pixel

  • 2x/4x/6x full scene anti-aliasing modes

  • Adaptive algorithm with programmable sample patterns

  • 2x/4x/8x/16x anisotropic filtering modes

  • Adaptive algorithm with bilinear (performance) and trilinear (quality) options

  • Bandwidth-saving algorithm enables this feature with minimal performance cost

-HYPERZ III

  • Hierarchical Z-Buffer and Early Z Test reduce overdraw by detecting and discarding hidden pixels

  • Lossless Z-Buffer Compression and Fast Z-Buffer Clear reduce memory bandwidth consumption by over 50%

  • Fast Z-Buffer Clear

-TRUFORM 2.0

  • 2nd generation N-patch higher order surface support

  • Discrete and continuous tessellation levels per polygon for dynamic LOD

  • DirectX 9.0 displacement mapping

ALSO INCLUDED

  • Remote Wonder

  • YPrPb Component Output dongle

  • Multimedia Center version 8.0

 

VIDEO FEATURES

-VIDEOSHADER

  • Seamless integration of programmable pixel shaders with video data

  • High quality, hardware accelerated de-blocking of internet streaming video

  • Noise removal filter for captured video

  • Integrated MPEG-2 decode

  • Hardware accelerated iDCT, motion compensation, and color space conversion

  • Top quality DVD and all-format DTV/HDTV decode with low CPU overhead

  • Back-end scaler delivers top quality playback

  • Upscaling and downscaling with 4-tap horizontal and vertical filtering

  • Filtered display of images up to 1920 pixels wide

  • Unique per-pixel adaptive de-interlacing feature combines the best elements of the bob and add-field (weave) techniques

FULLSTREAM video de-blocking technology

  • Noise removal filtering for captured video

  • MPEG-2 decoding with motion compensation, iDCT and color space conversion

  • All-format DTV/HDTV decoding

  • YPrPb component output

  • Adaptive de-interlacing and frame rate conversion

  • Dual integrated display controllers

  • Dual integrated 10-bit per channel 400MHz DACs

  • Integrated 165 MHz TMDS transmitter (DVI and HDCP compliant)

  • Integrated TV Output support up to 1024x768 resolution

  • Optimized for Pentium 4 SSE2 and AMD Athlon 3Dnow!

  • PC 2002 compliant

DISPLAY FEATURES

  • Dual integrated display controllers

  • Drive two displays simultaneously with independent resolutions and refresh rates

  • HYDRAVISION software provides complete control over multi-display configurations with a user-friendly interface

  • Dual integrated 10-bit per channel palette DACs operating at up to 400MHz

  • Integrated 165MHz TMDS transmitter supports resolutions up to QXGA (2048x1536) and complies with DVI and HDCP specifications

  • Integrated TV-Out support up to 1024x768 resolution

  • YPrPb output for direct drive of HDTV monitors

DISPLAY SUPPORT

  • S-video or composite connector for TV/VCR

  • DVI-I connector for digital CRT or flat panel

GENERAL FEATURES

  • Comprehensive 4x and 8x AGP support

  • Fully compliant with PC 2002 requirements

  • Optimized for Pentium 4 SSE2 and AMD Athlon 3Dnow! processor instructions

  • Supports THEATER 200 companion chip for NTSC/PAL/SECAM video capture

  • Highly optimized 128-bit 2D engine with support for new Windows XP GDI extensions

The Card and The First Wonder