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ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 Video Card

Friday, February 24th, 2006 | Reviews, Video Card Reviews

ATI continues to lead the way. Adding to its All-in-Wonder line of graphics cards is the mid-level All-in-Wonder 9600 XT, a graphic card you can use to convert your desktop to a digital-video-recording and FM-radio-playing PC entertainment center.

This ATI 128mb AGP video card is great for most games but because it has a bit of an overclocking tendency, it’s best not to test the video card capabilities with the latest high-end 3D games out there.

Installation of both hardware and software is easy enough and as it does not require the same amount of power as high-end graphics cards, you don’t even have to connect it directly to your desktop’s power source. A note on software updates though, be sure to uninstall and install what is required in the right sequence as many users complain of poor update installation instructions, resulting in the All-In-Wonder 9600 video card to stop functioning.

This ATI 128mb AGP video card ships with an adapter that can be connected to a proprietary port at the back of the video card. This provides for connections for two VGA ports, coaxial SPDIF audio, S-Video, composite video, and a sound jack to connect into your audio card (which of course is required for you to use the FM-radio feature). Well, so much for audio capabilities.

Another port at the back of the video card takes care of video input though a four-jack A/V adapter, which can receive S-Video, composite-video, and RCA audio and video connections. This brings us to the All-In-Wonder 9600 video card’s Multimedia Center 8.8 software, which adds DVD player functionality, a multimedia library so you can easily access your system’s images, video and audio files, and Guide+, which is a channel browser like TiVo.

The downside to the software is that many have reported some ‘bugs’, i.e., connectivity amongst the many different features don’t seem to work well all the time. DVD capability is great but the TV functionality leaves some users wanting for more.

Another frequent complaint is tech support response time (if you get any response at all). So if you’re not sure of what you are doing, this ATI 128mb AGP video card may be a tad frustrating for you.

Oh, and did we mention that that the All-In-Wonder 9600 video card comes with an improved RF remote control? It offers good range, better mouse control and configurable buttons. However, it does not have infrared.

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