All-in-Wonder 9600 XT vs Personal Cinema FX 5700

Fortunately, the Personal Cinema has matured a lot over the last two years. With all-new hardware, a ForceWare Multimedia software suite developed in-house by NVIDIA, and a couple of moves copped from ATI’s All-in-Wonder playbook, the Personal Cinema is back with a vengeance. Of course, ATI hasn’t exactly been twiddling its thumbs for the past two years. The company continues to tweak its All-in-Wonder hardware and Multimedia Center software, adding features and extending functionality along the way.

Has the Personal Cinema matured from a scrappy rookie with more potential than execution into a multimedia contender with enough polish to unseat the ever-evolving All-in-Wonder? We’ve snagged an All-in-Wonder 9600 XT and Personal Cinema FX 5700 to find out. Join me as I explore the performance, features, and quirks of these multimedia graphics solutions from ATI and NVIDIA.

At a glance
Before I dive into the specifics of the All-in-Wonder and Personal Cinema, let’s take a moment to quickly compare a few key differences between the cards.

Although both the AIW 9600 XT and Personal Cinema FX 5700 feature DirectX 9-class GPUs, the All-in-Wonder has a distinct fill rate and memory bandwidth advantage that should give it the upper hand in 3D performance tests. It might seem unfair to pit a 9600 XT against the less endowed and usually less expensive FX 5700, but the AIW 9600 XT is actually cheaper than the Personal Cinema FX 5700. Go figure.

What the Personal Cinema FX 5700 lacks in pixel pushing horsepower it makes up for in output variety. Sort of. The eVGA Personal Cinema FX 5700 we tested comes with not only a DVI output for digital flat panels, but also a component HDTV output for home theater buffs. The All-in-Wonder 9600 XT is also capable of HDTV output, but only through a $30 adapter. The AIW 9600 XT gets a couple of bonus points for dual monitor support, but that comes at the expense of a DVI output option.

Moving to TV tuners, I can’t help but be struck by irony. Both ATI and NVIDIA use Philips tuners, but the All-in-Wonder’s tuner is analog while the Personal Cinema’s is a digital affair. Two years ago, it was ATI’s Radeon 8500DV with the digital tuner while the Personal Cinema’s tuner was analog. In theory, a tuner with digital circuitry should offer cleaner signals and superior image quality. However, given the relatively poor quality of your average cable TV signal, the Personal Cinema’s digital tuner may not offer any tangible image quality benefits.

Finally, we have remotes. The AIW 9600 XT comes with ATI’s second-generation Remote Wonder II, a product so compelling that ATI still charges $50 for the original Remote Wonder. NVIDIA has a fancy remote, too. However, the NVRemote is going to look very familiar to those familiar with older All-in-Wonder products.

Down pat

The All-in-Wonder 9600 XT is just one option in a full stable of AIW products that stretches from the lowly Radeon 7500-based All-in-Wonder VE to the high-end All-in-Wonder 9800 Pro with numerous stops in between. ATI’s AIW lineup is so stacked that the AIW 9600 XT is one of three Radeon 9600-based All-in-Wonders; AIW versions of the 9600 and 9600 Pro are also available.

ATI’s deep AIW lineup and wealth of experience with multimedia graphics cards suggests that the AIW 9600 XT will be a strong contender, but that lineup and experience may also raise unrealistic expectations for the card. As the Los Angeles Lakers will tell you, expectations can be tough to fulfill, especially against a hungry underdog.

Green for the money, gold for the honeys

Memory chips from Samsung

The AIW 9600 XT isn’t much to look at, but since case windows generally don’t make their way into home theater PCs, having an aesthetically appealing card isn’t high on the priority list. Noise levels are a priority, though. The AIW 9600 XT features a larger heat sink than its AIW-less counterparts and comes equipped with a low-noise fan. Although the card’s heat sink appears to cover memory chips mounted on the top of the board as well, there’s actually no contact between the two.

Speaking of memory, the AIW 9600 XT comes with 128MB spread across eight BGA Samsung K4D263238E-GC2A DDR SDRAM chips. The chips are rated for operation at 350MHz (700MHz if we take into account DDR’s clock-doubling properties), but they’re only clocked at an effective 650MHz on the card. The 650MHz memory clock is actually 50MHz higher than the vanilla Radeon 9600 XT, whose memory runs at an effective 600MHz.

ATI’s All-in-Wonder clock speed fiddling isn’t limited to the 9600 XT’s memory; the card’s core clock speed is running at 525MHz—25MHz faster than a stock Radeon 9600 XT. Years ago, ATI clocked AIW cards slower than vanilla graphics products, so it’s interesting to see the reverse happening here. For more information on the AIW 9600 XT’s RV360 graphics core, including its pixel pipelines and “Black Magic” low-k manufacturing process, see our Radeon 9600 XT review.

ATI has used analog tuners exclusively since the Radeon 8500DV

The Theater 200 decoder

ATI uses an analog tuner from Philips to capture cable TV and FM radio signals. Silicon tuners with digital circuitry are technically capable of higher capture quality and faster channel switching, something that ATI was eager to point out when they had a digital tuner on the Radeon 8500DV. However, the relatively poor quality of cable TV feeds doesn’t really take advantage of a digital tuner’s potential for better picture quality. The AIW 9600 XT’s analog tuner isn’t slow to change channels, either.

Analog might be good enough for cable TV, but for other video capture tasks, the AIW 9600 XT relies on ATI’s Theater 200 video decoder chip. ATI uses the Theater 200 liberally in its All-in-Wonder lineup, even in the high-end AIW 9800 Pro.

The Rage Theater 200 features dual 12-bit analog-to-digital converters and adaptive comb filters. The chip supports composite and S-Video streams, which ATI hooks up with a Barney-purple input dongle.

Barney would approve

On the output side of things, ATI uses a second dongle. Thankfully, this one is black.

How’s that for a hydra?

The AIW 9600 XT’s output dongle handles all the card’s outputs, including a couple of VGA ports. DVI doesn’t factor into the equation, but the card at least supports multimonitor configurations right out of the box. The card also supports composite and S-Video outputs, but it’ll cost you $30 to buy the component HDTV output adapter from ATI. Even if you add the cost of the HDTV adapter, the AIW 9600 XT is still cheaper than the Personal Cinema FX 5700, so I’m not inclined to complain. However, I should note that the HDTV adapter will eat up one of the card’s VGA outputs.

Uh, no dual DVI?

With its input and output ports spread over two dongles, the AIW 9600 XT’s PCI back plate looks a little odd. I won’t complain about the lack of dual DVI outputs (for once), but a single DVI port might be useful in some home theater setups.

All-in-Wonder 9600 XT – Bundle
As always, there’s more to the AIW than just the card. ATI also packs the AIW 9600 XT’s box with a handful of goodies that really complete the package.

All-in-Wonders do radio now, too

First up, we have an FM antenna. Unless you plan on using the AIW 9600 XT to listen to the radio, this accessory will probably never make it out of the box. However, it should be a welcome addition for those building media-centric PCs that can handle both audio and video.

The Remote Wonder II

ATI also includes its second generation Remote Wonder II with the AIW 9600 XT. The new RF remote promises better range than the original and features a redesigned button layout and mouse divot. The new mouse divot deserves special attention because it’s much more sensitive than the original, which didn’t respond well to subtle movements unless the mouse speed was turned all the way down. Unfortunately, I’m not as crazy about the Remote Wonder II’s left and right mouse click buttons, which have been moved from below the mouse divot to above it. Maybe I just have stubby thumbs, but it’s a lot easier to reach mouse buttons located below the divot. At least the Remote Wonder II’s buttons have a more tactile feel than the original’s, which were a little mushy.

The Remote Wonder II retains the original’s six programmable buttons and also adds a set of auxiliary buttons that allow users to control applications running in the background or in out-of-focus windows. This new layer of flexibility is exposed in ATI’s latest Remote Wonder drivers, which I’ll get to in a minute.

A little something extra on the software front

Note also that the AIW 9600 XT also comes with a couple of third-party software titles. Full versions of Matchware Mediator 7 and Pinnacle Studio 8 are included in the box, but sadly, no copy of Half-Life 2. Er, make that no coupon for Half-Life 2.

All-in-Wonder 9600 XT – Multimedia Center software
I’ve been happily using BeyondTV (formerly Personal Video Station) in my home theater/PVR system for almost six months now, so I was particularly interested to see ATI’s updated Multimedia center software. The AIW 9600 XT actually shipped to me with MMC 8.8, but since 9.0 is available for download, I used it instead.

Coming from BeyondTV, I’ve been spoiled by a “10-foot GUI” interface that’s easy to read from the couch. Fortunately, ATI has a 10-foot GUI of its own, and EAZYLOOK is pretty slick.

EAZYLOOK as a home theater PC gateway

Clicking the “ATI” button on the Remote Wonder II brings up the EAZYLOOK main menu screen, which gives users access to Multimedia Center’s TV viewer, DVD player, file player, and media library applications. Directional buttons on the Remote Wonder II control the EAZYLOOK interface, making it easy to navigate through the various menus and applications without having to fiddle around with the mouse divot.

Having an EAZYLOOK interface for DVD and file playback is nice, especially when you can navigate through your media library from the couch. However, EAZYLOOK’s TV application is where the GUI really shines.

Easy-to-navigate menus

As close as EAZYLOOK gets to a program guide

For starters, it’s easy to control MMC’s PVR preferences, including programmable skip-forward and skip-backward durations to fine tune commercial skipping to match your reflexes. EAZYLOOK can also manipulate picture quality, parental controls, and source video feeds.

Unfortunately, EAZYLOOK won’t let users program recording schedules into Multimedia Center. The interface also lacks an integrated program guide, though there is some integration with the included Gemstar Guide+ software. When Guide+ is installed with the latest programming guide for your area, EAZYLOOK displays the channel name and current program in a corner of the screen every time a channel is changed. The programming hint is helpful, but it’s a far cry from an integrated program guide and PVR scheduling app.

Like I said, BeyondTV spoils me.

Confirm that nothing good is on, 24 channels at a time

EAZYLOOK finds some redemption with its innovative channel surf feature, which displays snapshots from up to 24 channels on the screen at once. The channel surfing feature isn’t quite as helpful as a real program guide that tells you precisely what’s on each channel, but it’s better than nothing.

MMC’s windowed TV application

If you’d rather not have EAZYLOOK take up the entire screen, Multimedia Center also has a scalable windows interface. Personally, I’ve never been crazy about the look of ATI’s windowed MMC interfaces, but ATI offers a couple of skins to change the app’s look and feel.

MMC’s windowed interface has a few interesting tricks up its sleeve, including the ability to output TV playback to the Windows desktop’s background image and make TV playback windows semi-transparent. These little features are neat, but they’ve been a part of the MMC software suite for a while now, and I still have a hard time thinking of real world situations where they might be useful.

All-in-Wonder 9600 XT – Multimedia Center software – con’t
Like other All-in-Wonders, the AIW 9600 XT ships with a copy of Gemstar’s Guide+ software, which downloads regional programming guides based on your postal or zip code.

Guide+: Try reading that from the couch

As an interactive programming guide, Guide+ certainly gets the job done. Unfortunately, you’re going to need a massive high-definition TV to have any hope of using the software from the couch. It’s not like EAZYLOOK and MMC don’t talk to each other; the interface pulls information from Guide+ to display the title of what’s playing as you flip through channels. Unfortunately, EAZYLOOK doesn’t pull the whole programming grid into its 10-foot GUI.

Search and record but forget about smart scheduling

As a programming guide, Guide+ is pretty effective. The software is loaded with search features and scheduling a recording is a mouse click away. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to schedule programs individually. Unlike TiVo and BeyondTV, Guide+ isn’t smart enough to record all episodes of a given program, regardless of channel or time slot. Guide+ can’t even handle recording a given time slot and channel every day, week, month, and so on, although individual recordings can be modified within ATI’s PVR scheduler to run daily, weekly, or on weekdays.

While I’m bemoaning Guide+’s recording inadequacies, I have to mention Multimedia Center’s lack of silent recording. Whenever MMC is recording a program, be it one that was tagged from Guide+ or programmed manually using the TV application, MMC pops up a TV window and displays the program as it’s being recorded. You get a full audio and video feed, which can be annoying if you happen want to use the system for something else at the same time. Applications like BeyondTV and even NVIDIA’s ForceWare Multimedia software record programs without popping up windows, piping recorded audio through the speakers, or otherwise infringing on the desktop. That’s the way it should be.

If you’re coming from TiVo or BeyondTV, Guide+ and MMC’s recording shortcomings will be immediately apparent. Guide+ is all but useless when viewed on a TV, and MMC’s lack of smart, silent recording capabilities can really be a pain. ATI deserves some credit for supporting direct-to-MPEG4 recording in addition to MPEG1 and MPEG2, but to be perfectly honest, I’d rather have silent recording.

While Guide+ and MMC lack smart recording features, ATI’s Remote Wonder software is brilliant.

Four plug-ins to start

The Remote Wonder software comes with pre-installed plug-ins for Guide+, the Multimedia Center Library, Powerpoint, and Winamp 2.x. You’re not limited to these plug-ins, though. ATI makes a plug-in SDK available if you want to roll your own, and Google reveals loads of user-created plug-ins for a wide range of media playback and home theater management apps.

Six programmable buttons to manipulate

If you can’t find a plug-in to match your needs and don’t feel like coding one of your own, the Remote Wonder II still has six programmable buttons at your fingertips. These buttons can be programmed to launch applications, simulate keyboard events, and even modify the behavior of existing plug-ins.

Auxiliary buttons unlock four plug-ins at once

As if that weren’t enough, the Remote Wonder II’s four auxiliary buttons can be bound to specific applications or plug-ins. While the original Remote Wonder was limited to controlling only foreground or in-focus windows, the Remote Wonder II can manipulate background applications, giving the remote more flexibility than ever before.

The Remote Wonder software also lets users control mouse tracking speeds and acceleration and set a unique remote ID to prevent multiple Remote Wonders from interfering with each other. The ability to set a unique remote ID is particularly important since the Remote Wonder’s flexibility makes it a useful accessory for multiple PCs within a home.

MMC’s radio interface fits in with the rest of the suite

Although not nearly as impressive as the Remote Wonder software, Multimedia Center has a couple of additional applications that are worth mentioning. First, there’s the FM radio tuner, which can record and timeshift radio frequencies. Ripping MP3s from the airwaves isn’t quite as convenient as using one of the many peer-to-peer music services or purchasing tracks from legitimate online vendors, but it’s free, and as far as I know, perfectly legal.

Another interesting addition to the MMC suite is EAZYSHARE, which lets users share live TV and recorded content over a network. Unfortunately, you can only share media with PCs running ATI graphics cards. The software is limited to local area networks, too, but it’s a start.

The rookie returns with style

eVGA’s Personal Cinema FX 5700 is currently the fastest GeForce FX-based Personal Cinema. That’s a little disappointing given NVIDIA’s robust lineup of GeForce FX 5900 products, but we shouldn’t be surprised. In its early days, the Personal Cinema was limited to low-end GeForce MX cards. At least today it’s managed to claw its way into mid-range products like the 5700.

According to Pricewatch, eVGA, Chaintech, MSI, and XFX all have Personal Cinema products available through North American retailers. That’s a pretty substantial list considering that ATI and Sapphire are the only card manufacturers offering All-in-Wonders in North America. Microsoft has also named the Personal Cinema as the reference platform for Windows Multimedia Center Edition, and that’s not an endorsement to be taken lightly. The multimedia underdog certainly looks better prepared to take on ATI this time around.

The Personal Cinema FX 5700 looking all sexy

TSOP is so last year

Like the AIW 9600 XT, the Personal Cinema FX 5700 doesn’t have much visual appeal. Looking at the card does reveal a few interesting quirks, though. For starters, the heat sink/fan assembly is tiny, making me immediately cautious of the card’s noise levels. Also, the card sports a four-pin auxiliary power connector that isn’t usually seen on mid-range graphics cards. I suspect the card’s extra Personal Cinema hardware, particularly the digital tuner, is behind the card’s higher power requirements.

Buried under the Personal Cinema FX 5700’s tiny heat sink is NVIDIA’s NV36 graphics chip, which you can explore in more detail in our review of the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra.

The Personal Cinema FX 5700’s core is clocked at 425MHz, a full 100MHz slower than the AIW 9600 XT. Since both graphics are 4×1-pipe designs, the FX 5700 is at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to pixel and texel fill rates. The Personal Cinema FX 5700 is also has less memory bandwidth. The card comes with 128MB of DDR SDRAM clocked at 275MHz (an effective 550MHz for DDR memory), which yields 15% less peak memory bandwidth than the AIW 9600 XT. The Personal Cinema FX 5700’s memory chips don’t have any “free” overclocking headroom, either. The Samsung K4D261638E-TC36 chips are only rated for operation at speeds up to 275MHz.

There’s a silicon tuner somewhere under there

The Philips video decoder

The Personal Cinema FX 5700’s silicon-based tuner is shrouded under a protective metal cap that prevents prying eyes from getting a peek at what’s inside. The cap is unmarked, but according to eVGA’s box art, the tuner is made by Philips. Silicon-based tuners are often referred to as digital tuners, but they shouldn’t be confused with tuners capable of recording digital HDTV signals.

It’s ironic that years after ATI abandoned the Radeon 8500DV’s digital tuner in favor of analog, NVIDIA has dropped analog tuners for a silicon-based unit. In theory, a silicon-based tuner can deliver superior picture quality and quicker channel switching, but in my experience, the picture quality of typical cable signals is too low to give digital tuners an advantage. The Personal Cinema’s digital tuner doesn’t switch channels noticeably faster than the AIW’s analog tuner, either. For what it’s worth, I didn’t observe any picture quality difference between the All-in-Wonder and Personal Cinema in my composite video AVI capture tests.

Where have I seen this before?

While we’re talking about video capture, have a gander at the Personal Cinema FX 5700’s input/output dongle. The dongle is loaded with ports, including S-Video input and output ports, composite video inputs, and even a trio component HDTV outputs. Unlike the AIW 9600 XT, the Personal Cinema FX 5700 can generate HDTV signals right out of the box.

Well, at least there’s one DVI port

The Personal Cinema FX 5700 also trumps the AIW 9600 XT by including a DVI output. However, the Personal Cinema only has one, so multimonitor configurations are definitely out. It’s really a shame that the Personal Cinema FX 5700 doesn’t support dual monitors; NVIDIA’s nView multimonitor software is far superior to ATI’s HydraVision multimonitor app.

Personal Cinema FX 5700 – Bundle
Since the Personal Cinema FX 5700 runs about $75 more than the AIW 9600 XT, I expect a little more from the bundle. eVGA’s Personal Cinema delivers, sort of.

Look familiar?

The bundle starts out with an FM antenna that, as far as I can tell, is identical to the one ATI ships with the AIW 9600 XT.

A full cable bundle

eVGA complements the antenna with a full assortment of audio and video cables that are notably absent from the AIW’s bundle. The AIW actually has composite and S-Video connectors built into its output dongle, but the dongle only stretches a few inches. The cables bundled with the Personal Cinema FX 5700 stretch several feet and come in component, composite, and S-Video flavors. When combined with the Personal Cinema’s lengthy video dongle, it’s easy to reach video sources or TVs up to eight feet away from a system.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, NVIDIA must really love ATI’s original Remote Wonder. The NVRemote bundled with the Personal Cinema is virtually identical to ATI’s original RF remote. NVIDIA’s tweaked the button layout and switched around a few colors, but otherwise, the remote appears to be physically identical to the original Remote Wonder.

Copping ATI’s remote for the Personal Cinema certainly wasn’t a bad idea. Unfortunately, NVIDIA has emulated a first-generation Remote Wonder that’s over two years old. The NVRemote’s look and feel might match the original Remote Wonder, but button response and mouse tracking is definitely inferior to the Remote Wonder II. Heck, the NVRemote’s mouse tracking is even poor when compared with the original Remote Wonder, though that’s likely a software rather than hardware issue.

To NVIDIA’s credit, the NVRemote half-emulates the Remote Wonder II’s auxiliary application buttons by letting users switch the remote from controlling DVR, DVD/VCD, Photo, Music, and Web applications. Of course, this ability comes at the expense of programmable buttons, which severely limits the NVRemote’s flexibility.

A couple of extras lurk on those CDs

On the software front, eVGA bundles a couple of third-party programs with the Personal Cinema FX 5700. Ulead DVD MovieFactory 2.5 SE and Ulead VideoStudio 7.0 SE are both included alongside eVGA’s Media Menu front-end, which loads the following menu when you boot into Windows.

A 10-foot GUI, sort of, but not really

Media Menu is nothing more than a front-end for NVIDIA’s ForceWare Multimedia app, so don’t get too excited. The menu screen is a far cry from a true 10-foot GUI and doesn’t even work with the NVRemote’s directional navigation buttons.

Personal Cinema FX 5700 – ForceWare Multimedia software
Back when NVIDIA first introduced the Personal Cinema, the company relied on third-party software to play back, record, and manage media. Things have changed since then, and NVIDIA now offers a full ForceWare Multimedia suite that was developed in-house for the Personal Cinema.

Another not quite 10-foot GUI

ForceWare covers everything from TV viewing and recording to media authoring and FM tuning. Unfortunately, the user interface is all but impossible to read on a low-resolution TV screen from a couch ten feet away. NVIDIA is working on a couch-friendly user interface for ForceWare Multimedia, but it’s not available yet.

Choose between information overload…

Or a cleaner, simpler window

ForceWare Multimedia’s interface is similar to NVIDIA’s NVDVD player, and it’s really quite attractive. Users can opt for several interface configurations to display more or less information. ForceWare Multimedia can also pull program information from the Guide+ programming guide to display program information as one flips through channels. Unfortunately, program information isn’t displayed while flipping through channels in full-screen mode. Perhaps that’s something NVIDIA will work into its 10-foot GUI.

Both ATI and NVIDIA use Gemstar’s Guide+ software to download localized TV listings, but NVIDIA claims actual integration with its ForceWare Multimedia app. At first, I thought NVIDIA might be pulling programming data from Guide+ and presenting its own scheduling grid within ForceWare Multimedia, but that’s not the case.

Hurray for integration?

All NVIDIA has done is transplanted the Guide+ application into its ForceWare Multimedia app. Technically, I suppose you could call that integration. However, the Guide+ layout and interface has a big footprint that doesn’t work well in small or even medium-sized ForceWare Multimedia windows. You basically have to maximize ForceWare Multimedia window to make Guide+ usable, but then you run into the same programming limitations I discussed just a few pages ago.

That’s better, but it’s still Guide+

Although Guide+ does an admirable job displaying searchable programming schedules, its inability to record any instance of a particular show, regardless of time or channel, is a huge shortcoming. I’m also not impressed by Guide+’s inability to record a time slot and channel on a repetitive schedule, but NVIDIA’s PVR software has that base covered. Although you can’t schedule programs tagged in Guide+ to record multiple times, you can create custom recordings for a given time slot, channel, and daily, weekly, weekday, or monthly recurrence schedule.

NVIDIA’s PVR app also deserves credit for supporting silent recording. When a schedule recording begins there’s no pop-up TV window and no hijacked audio. That’s the way it should be. Are you listening, ATI?

ForceWare Multimedia falls a little short, however, when it comes to supported encoding formats. A number of MPEG1 and MPEG2 presets are available, and you can roll your own variation of each. MPEG4 encoding, though, is conspicuously absent. ForceWare Multimedia also lacks an equivalent to Multimedia Center’s VideoSoap feature, which employs a number of customizable pixel shader-powered filters to clean up dirty video signals.

Personal Cinema FX 5700 – ForceWare Multimedia software – con’t
Like ATI’s Multimedia Center, NVIDIA’s ForceWare Multimedia app has a couple of extra non-TV applications.

Radio, ForceWare Multimedia style

First, there’s the FM radio, which comes complete with time shifting and recording capabilities. The radio app is controlled by the same user interface as the rest of the ForceWare Multimedia suite, which creates a consistent experience overall.

Like ATI’s software, ForceWare Multimedia can share live TV and recorded content over a network. This time around, sharing is limited to PCs with NVIDIA graphics cards, which is every bit as snippy as the ATI software’s requirement of ATI graphics cards. It’d be nice if either ATI or NVIDIA would be the bigger man here, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Our look at the Personal Cinema’s software suite ends with the NVRemote’s driver, which is the only NVIDIA app not integrated into the ForceWare Multimedia interface—not that there’s much to integrate.

Without programmable buttons, the only thing users can change on the NVRemote is which application is summoned with the remote’s DVD, Music, Photo, PVR, and Web buttons. I suppose that’s technically programmability, but it’s limited at best.

Farewell, Windows 9x support

Even if we ignore programmability, the NVRemote still has a way to go before it can equal even the original Remote Wonder’s flexibility. For starters, something needs to be done about mouse tracking. The default configuration is pretty choppy, even compared with the original Remote Wonder. What makes matters worse is that there’s no way to adjust the NVRemote’s tracking speed or acceleration. And you can forget about setting a remote ID, although given the NVRemote’s limited flexibility, odds are you won’t be using more than one of them.

Finally, the Personal Cinema FX 5700 only works with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. NVIDIA actually has Personal Cinema and graphics drivers for Windows 9x, but ForceWare Multimedia’s PVR application requires Windows 2000 or XP.

Our testing methods
All tests were run three times, and their results were averaged, using the following test systems.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

• Virtualdub v1.5.10
• Far Cry 1.1 with trdemo1.
• Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory with demo0000.dm_82
• Unreal Tournament 2004 v3236 with trdemo1.demo4
• Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow v1.2

The test systems’ Windows desktop was set at 1024×768 in 32-bit color at a 75Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests. All of the 3D gaming tests used the high detail image quality settings.

All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.

Unreal Tournament 2004

The Personal Cinema FX 5700 is competitive in Unreal Tournament 2004 at 800×600 with no antialiasing or anisotropic filtering, but it’s all over after that. The All-in-Wonder 9600 XT’s performance is pretty impressive, especially considering that the card manages just a few frames per second shy of 40 at 1024×768 with 8X aniso and 4X antialiasing.

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory

The FX 5700 pulls off a surprise win in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, but NVIDIA card have traditionally performed well in this game. Still, it’s somewhat remarkable that even with a fill rate and memory bandwidth disadvantage, the FX 5700 pulls off wins at every resolution and antialising/anisotropic filtering level.

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
For our Pandora Tomorrow test, I ran through an empty level of the game’s Warehouse multiplayer level and recorded frame rates with FRAPS. The run-through was completed in an identical fashion three times, and results were consistent between each run. Both night and thermal vision modes were used to paint the most accurate picture of real-world gameplay.

Pandora Tomorrow doesn’t work properly with antialiasing so I’ve only reported results with and without 8X aniso.

Scores are close at 800×600, but ATI stretches to a bit of a lead at 1024×768. Overall frame rates are low, but the game’s pacing is slow enough that it’s not a problem. However, things get a little too choppy at higher resolutions to be playable, even on the All-in-Wonder.

Far Cry
Since Far Cry is a graphics pig and we’re dealing with mid-range graphics cards, we started testing using the medium detail levels.

And it’s not even close. The AIW 9600 XT wipes the floor with the Personal Cinema FX 5700. But wait, it gets uglier for the Personal Cinema.

With “very high” detail levels, the FX 5700 only manages to complete our demo at 800×600 with no aniso or antialiasing. At higher resolutions and with aniso or antialiasing enabled, visual artifacts make the game unplayable.

The AIW 9600 XT didn’t have any problem with artifacting, even with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering. Unfortunately, the card doesn’t have the horsepower to produce reasonable frame rates at resolutions higher than 1024×768.

Multimedia CPU utilization
We’re a curious lot here at TR, and I thought it might be interesting to measure the CPU utilization of various video capture and home theater PC tasks. All tests were conducted over two minutes using input from the cards’ composite video inputs. In order to ensure that the tests were recording a consistent source, I hooked up my Xbox and used Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow’s intro movie as capture fodder.

An AVI capture test kicks off our look at CPU utilization. For this test, I used Virtualdub to capture an uncompressed 720×480 video stream.

This one’s too close to call. Both cards exhibit comparable CPU utilization across the length of the test.

Next up, we have an MPEG2 capture. This time around, I used the internal recording capabilities of Multimedia Center and ForceWare Multimedia. MPEG2 video was captured at 720×480 with a constant bit rate of 4.8Mbps. Audio was captured at 48kHz.

The Personal Cinema FX 5700 has much higher CPU utilization in our MPEG2 capture test. The AIW 9600 XT is rarely above 30% CPU utilization, while the Personal Cinema is rarely below 40%. Over the length of the two-minute recording, the All-in-Wonder’s CPU utilization averages more than 13% lower than the Personal Cinema’s.

Home theater PCs do more than just static recording, so I threw in a timeshifting test for fun. For this test, I recorded the same two minutes of video. However, instead of watching the recording run all the way through, I jumped back to the beginning of the recording after one minute had passed. The test was run using the same MPEG2 settings as the MPEG2 capture test.

Another win for the All-in-Wonder. This time around, the Personal Cinema’s CPU utilization flirts with 60% and averages just under 50%. The AIW, on the other hand, averages a much more reasonable 30% CPU utilization across the two-minute test.

Next, we have DVD playback, which shouldn’t be a challenge for our relatively high-end system. For this test, I measured CPU utilization across the first two minutes of the first scene of Dogma. A LiteOn 16X DVD-ROM drive was used as the source drive for the DVD.

CPU utilization is low across the board, and ATI squeaks out another win, despite the Personal Cinema’s dedicated DVD decoder hardware. Of course, both scores hover around 5%, so there’s nothing to get too excited about.

Although the Personal Cinema doesn’t do MPEG4 recording, I was curious to see how the AIW performed. I also wondered about the impact of ATI’s unique VideoSoap filters, which leverage pixel shader power to clean up messy video streams, so I threw an extra capture test together. I used the same resolution and constant bit rate as in the MPEG2 tests. For VideoSoap, I used ATI’s pre-defined “Light” and “Heavy” filters. I also created a custom three-filter “Extreme” VideoSoap preset because, well, everything’s extreme these days.

Wow. To be honest, I was expecting MPEG4 capture to steal more CPU cycles, especially with VideoSoap, but that isn’t the case. Our Athlon 64 3200+ test system is a little beefier than the average home theater PC, but I’m encouraged by the AIW’s performance. Even with MPEG4 encoding and three VideoSoap filters cranked all the way up, CPU utilization still averages below 40%.

Noise levels
Because no one wants a whiny computer sitting in his living room, I measured the noise levels of our test system with each card. An Extech model 407727 digital sound level meter was placed six inches from an open test system, and measurements were taken at idle and under a 3DMark03 load.

While it’s a lot quieter than a DustBuster, the Personal Cinema’s tiny cooler is quite a bit louder than the AIW 9600 XT’s low-speed fan. It’s interesting to note that the AIW’s noise levels are lower at idle than under load because the card doesn’t use a variable speed fan. Our test system’s motherboard does, though. The Abit KV8 Pro lowers the CPU fan speed at idle, producing lower noise levels. The motherboard also lowered CPU fan speeds when I tested the Personal Cinema’s noise levels, but the processor fan’s lower noise levels were apparently lost under the Personal Cinema fan’s high-pitched whine.

Power consumption
For kicks, I whipped out my trusty watt meter and measured overall system power consumption at idle and under a 3DMark03 load.

The AIW-equipped system consumes almost 10% less power under load than the Personal Cinema-equipped equivalent. That’s not a huge margin, but it’s something for eco-weenie or penny-pinching types to consider.

Conclusions
NVIDIA has improved the Personal Cinema by leaps and bounds over the last two years. Unfortunately, they’re chasing a moving target. ATI hasn’t rested on its laurels, and in many respects, the All-in-Wonder is better than ever. Unfortunately, the AIW still has a couple of flaws that, though they don’t quite stop the show, remain incredibly annoying.

I’ve always been a fan of underdogs. Although NVIDIA has made great progress with the Personal Cinema, there is still much work to be done. For starters, the NVRemote needs more driver flexibility and programmability. MPEG4 recording and VideoSoap-like filters would also be nice, although they’re much less important than a 10-foot GUI. Given ForceWare Multimedia’s integration of so many different applications under the same user interface, I can only hope NVIDIA’s upcoming 10-foot interface will work with all the Personal Cinema’s applications and include a couch-friendly program guide.

To NVIDIA’s credit, they’ve managed to best the All-in-Wonder in one key area: silent recording. Multimedia Center’s inability to record a program without popping up a TV window is a fundamental flaw and potential deal breaker. Really, what gives?

Fortunately for ATI, the All-in-Wonder 9600 XT has plenty going for it, including an excellent EAZYLOOK interface that’s a joy to use from the couch. ATI still needs to integrate a program guide into EAZYLOOK, but they have solid foundation laid. They also have a phenomenal second-generation Remote Wonder II, whose new auxiliary buttons and improved mouse divot are enhanced by a flexible driver and compatibility with a wide range of applications and home-spun plug-ins. And let’s not forget the 9600 XT’s superior 3D performance, lower noise levels, and more frugal CPU utilization during our capture, playback, and timeshifting tests.

The cherry on the All-in-Wonder 9600 XT’s cake is the card’s $191 street price—$70 cheaper than the Personal Cinema FX 5700. To NVIDIA’s credit, the Personal Cinema sports HDTV output out of the box and comes with a stack of video cables, but those extras aren’t worth $70.

So the verdict is easy. The All-in-Wonder 9600 XT comes out on top. Were it not for the importance of silent recording, ATI’s victory would be a landslide. Still, NVIDIA has moved to within striking distance of the multimedia graphics crown. They can make up a lot of ground by simply improving the Personal Cinema’s software and drivers, and software and drivers are certainly things NVIDIA is well-equipped to tackle.