3. The Video Card / TV Tuner

Due to its size, the MEGA 180 had only two expansion slots: one AGP and one PCI. Since it contained only one PCI slot I decided to purchase another ATI All in Wonder series AGP card to use as my primary TV tuner so that I could use the PCI slot for expansion. The AIW9600 was a solid graphics card ranking in between the AIW9600 Pro and the AIW9000. It sported the same features as the "Pro" version but it was clocked down with a 400 MHz to 325MHz graphics processor clock speed and 325-MHz to 200-MHz DRAM.

Usually, when I build a PC I make sure to throw in the most powerful graphics controller that I can afford. However, my first HTPC definitely taught me a few hard lessons about noise and I was beginning to learn to think outside of the gaming box. Being much more interested in quiet operation in the HTPC than trying to squeeze every last FPS out of the card my choice was fairly easy. The AIW 9600 Pro had an active graphics processor cooler (it also used a nasty looking little mini fan that looked like it was just waiting to collect dust and become noisy). The AIW 9600 non-pro version had a nice little passive cooler that was guaranteed to be absolutely silent for as long as I wanted to use the card (of course, there was also a $75 difference in price).

The AIW 9600 was compatible with the upgraded version of the ATI Multi Media Center, which I wanted to try, and it was powerful enough to handle high-definition resolutions without wheezing to a halt like my tired old AIW 8500DV (note that the 9600 could handle HD resolutions for DVD playback, but the TV tuner was standard definition). The AIW9600 utilized a dongle for all audio and video output including dual VGA, Svideo and component video outputs. That brought me up to a total of seven display outputs including the onboard video.

The ATI All in Wonder 9600

The ATI All in Wonder 9600 dongle.