AMD kills off all in wonder division

[Beomagi]

ATI all in wonder's aren't the most sought after cards usually, though they do recieve praise often. The las x1900 AIW was a prime candidate for overclockers being the same core as the x1900xt/xtx, just running at 500MHz, instead of 625/650MHz, and the memory was 1GHz, instead of 1.45/1.55GHz. The card's performance was nearly identical to the x1900gt.

It's hardly top of the line, but overclockers, and people looking for a little more thanks to the tuner, video input, video apps and an insane amount of dongles loved it. Now no more. AMD is sacking most employees from the AIW division, and some of their own to lower costs.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3983


get em while they're hot
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=321354

[Crixx_Creww]

pfft haahahahahah

[TriniXaeno]

ALL in Wonders were the holy grail of the home entertainment scene.

You could hook up everything and the kitchen sink to your PC with those things. More importantly, they came bundled with decent software to tie it all together right out of the box.

In reality, you had to be a real technomage to make use of all the features. They weren't cheap either, cost some serious $$.

Definitely a niche within a niche.

Also posed a real dilemna for a gamer, since they would often find themselves out paced by younger siblings in short course.

So you spring for US$300.00 all in wonder based on the 9600 Pro and then boom....an ATI 9800 Pro comes out for US$199.00 that mops the floor with it in 3DMark 2005.

Suddenly, that TV Card feature and Video In isn't looking as sexy as before. lol

You will be missed.

* [X]-Baego throws down a pengo CD on the floor for the homies that we lossed.

[Arcmanov]

lol @ 'pengo'.  Yuh couldn't even spare a proper TDK or Sony instead.   

[Saxito Pau]

well such news don't bother me too much.... I always preferred separate TV and Video cards for the same reason that Baego described

Right now I running my (dated) AGP GF 5900XT with an ATI Theater 550 Pro TV card (PCI) this TV card have no loopback cable for sound like older card used to.. straight thru the PCI bus. and teh TV quality SWEET!

[Prowl]

This is sad, the AIW were very good cards for their niche, I'll be expecting more cuts and cancelations from amd soon to. The really bad thing is nvidias competition may have just been removed, less competition means less quality for us. I actually see AMD not helping ati but gutting the company for what ever they can.

Now Intel needs to NOT buy nvidia but start a daughter company just for graphics.

[W1nTry]

*W1nTry strooks his X800XT as it sobs bitterly for it's would-have-been descendants* it was a very good series and some will miss having that additional functionality all-in-wONdEr. Personally the performance deficit isn't as noticeable (at least on X800) series, but is probably more of a hiccup at the X1K series. Yeah @ Baego, yuh really have to dive deep into the software to appreciate ALL the features the cards had, however off the bat, the on the fly replay (ala tivo style) is very nice as well as the gabillion inputs and even program schedule where available is nice (read directTV). It was also a decent OCer if yuh replace the stock coolers and all in all it was a solid card. I guess man haffe loose 2 slots now to watch TV on he PC... and if yuh thinking a dual cooler solution (as in most high end cards) that means if yuh mobo not sporting 3 PCI slots, crapo smoke yuh pipe. Case as seen in man SLI/Xfire mobos. Yuh lose a PCIe slot to the 1st card, yuh loose a PCI to the second and generally that leaves yuh with 1 PCI for yuh Audigy/XiFi... so where dat last PCI TvTuner going? I guess yuh might have 1 more PCI that is accessible.. but really wha USB tuner for it?

As far as Prowl's Intel/Nvidia comment goes, intel has ALREADY started its own graphics division.. or rather re-opened it DISCRETE graphics section. Whether it'd consider Nvidia... well that's another story in another thread.

[Prowl]

Intel always had a graphics division but they need to let it loose on it's own with designs that can compete with Nvidia and ATI. I will really miss ATI ( used to live 2 blocks from the headquarters in Toronto, neighbour was production engineer, used to get to play with the new designs first, now he's left for nvidia ). I may miss ATI even more if AMD continues down the road we think they are headed!

BTW the X800 series was the bomb! and the x1900gt is the last strong single slot ati card ( the new x1950 pro is not gonna be as fast! ). BTW the new cards have vivo, allowing video capture but still pales compared to the AIW!

[W1nTry]

Intel always had a graphics division but they need to let it loose on it's own with designs that can compete with Nvidia and ATI.

Well, the thing is that their design team sucked b@llz. The integrated video solutions is what we've seen and well, we all know its about as powerful as a drunk hamster running in a square running wheel. That aside, they are hiring ppl like MAD right now from Nvidia, ATI and a few others. I read they absorbed the entire video design team from Creative (or at least a large portion of it) and they at present have some licensing agreement with another company for the XGI or something to that effect engine. So expect stuff from them soon.

I may miss ATI even more if AMD continues down the road we think they are headed!

I am unsure what you mean by this, please expand.

BTW the X800 series was the bomb! and the x1900gt is the last strong single slot ati card ( the new x1950 pro is not gonna be as fast! ). BTW the new cards have vivo, allowing video capture but still pales compared to the AIW!

Yeah the X800 is the sh1t, as for vivo, you're right that can't compete with the AIW. I figure it best to wait for G80 as in the least R580 will drop in price. Heck, it DX9.0L is good enough in performance vs. Vista+DX10 then yuh may not even need G80/R600.

[TrinireturnofGamez]

 I don't see the point of having a whole ' AIW' division , its just a matter of slapping on adapters and a rage theatre chip onto whatever latest ATI architecture you get .  What they'll do is maybe try to sell TV cards seperate , or intigrate basic TV card options into all medium-high end cards... No sense throwing away a growing market .

 @ wintry , Intel chipsets have SOME horsepower , the latest ones are comparable to a 9600 in some benches , just that they do shit like have SOFTWARE vetrex shading ie. your cpu playing with your polygons , and general bad drivers , Intel cutting as many corners as possible on those chips and not caring about gamers.

[Prowl]

I may miss ATI even more if AMD continues down the road we think they are headed!

I am unsure what you mean by this, please expand.

Amd just wants to use ati to make their own chipsets like intel does, the graphics side is secondary and thats what AMDs main ( future ) focus will be. As much as graphics cards are important as much as 50% of the market still runs on integrated chip set based video ( I am not 100% sure if the trend is changing ). So as far as AMD is concerned chip set develpoment is priority as are integrated video solutions, fighting with Nvidia is not top on their list. This effectively ( over time ) gives Nvidia the crown by default as they will continue to persue their main goal, faster than ati cards ( as ati's goal was faster than Nvidia cards etc etc )!

Blast Intel for not stepping in when they could!

Basically less competition is BAD!!!!! Amd keeps Intel on their toes ( one little Presshot mistake and amd was all over that! ), who will keep Nvidia ( or who ever if intel does buy them ) on theirs?

[W1nTry]

Well I think you are failing to see that AMD isn't about to KILL ATI with total lackluster performance in the integrated chipset market. Yes they are looking to improve their platform and eat up more market share across the board, Yes they have ideas like GPU on the CPU amoungst other ideas like a GPU co-processor in the 4x4 platform. Yes they are firing redundant staff and then some (that can't be helped, even intel had to do that on a MUCH larger scale). But there will be lots of benefits (we hope) from the closer integration of the GPU and CPU. the 4x4 platform already offers a direct HT interconnection from the CPU to the GPU (should a GPU co-processor exist soon) and that will allow ridiculous bandwidth in both directions vs. the PCIe bus. But also with the heavy math processing that GPUs can already crunch, it has applications in the physics and science realm that other ppl will be interested in. Time alone will tell what come of the merger, I do however doubt we'll see DAAMIT completely fireball the discrete market to Nvidia. That's just not economically sound. You buy a company to KILL its existing market base??? that'd be like Intel still trying to push NetBUSS as the preferred tech...

[Prowl]

It's just past experience ( MS especially is a good example ) they won't kill their market base intentionaly but if they interfere with ATI too much they will loose support. For AMD the increase in market with chipsets and integration is worth more than the graphics business. Look at Intel, processor sales are not the majority of their sales, it's the chipsets with the processors! Amd can double their sales by also selling chipsets that support their processors while the gpus are needed this will be their focus, less dedication to high end.

BTW the whole integration goes back to 1985 with probably one of the best designs in computer history! The Commodore Amiga!!! ( RIP ).