All-in-BLUNDER
Written: Jul 11 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Wonderful idea
Cons: Bad follow-through, even worse drivers/software
The Bottom Line: If you love swallowing Aspirin, you'll love this card. Otherwise I would consider having bought this card a mistake.
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| mobomofo's Full Review: ATI ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON, (32 MB) PCI Video Card |
What a wonderful idea! All those audio/video options, cords, adapters, hardware encoding, TV tuner, Digital VCR, and a gaming video card??? WOW!
Except, this card is a pill. I could install it and everything- that wasn't the hard part. It's dealing with those horrible drivers and the faulty software that kills this card. The drivers seem to have a mind of their own so you sort of have to "tip-toe around" so as to not crash whatever you're running from ATI's software package.
The drivers aren't even really just the drivers- it's a whole 13MB-20MB software package (depending on what you download)! If you want to get the updates(I highly recommend, or that's another headache!) over a 56k modem, you'll be waiting an hour or two. Drivers I download now from nVidia are only 2 or 3MB and only take about 20mins
The Radeon chipset isn't even all that "wonder"-ful. The only game that had a stable frame rate was HalfLife and Quake II (same basic engine). It didn't handle Quake III all too well- very choppy. My old Diamond Viper was slower BUT the framerate was smooth. I don't need the really high frame rates, just smooth performance.
I have since bought an Asus v7700 (nVidia GeForce2 GTS chipset) with 250% more speed and performance and for only $160 on eBay. I've had no problems so far. The only thing it's missing is the TV Tuner.
System Specs
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Asus A7A266 mobo
1200MHz AMD T-Bird
256MB PC2100 Crucial
30GB Quantum FireBall
SBLive mp3+
Kingston NIC
350w Sparkle PS
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 210
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Epinions.com ID:
mobomofo
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Location: tha 'noth ; )
Reviews written: 41
Trusted by: 9 members
About Me:
Mobomofo has a great knowledge of electronic components. So great, he thought to share it!
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