Diamond back in the graphics market

[sbp]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20031028135840.html
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=59218

Diamond Multimedia, a pioneer in the graphics industry, today announced its return to the consumer graphics market with plans to launch next-generation graphics cards under its legendary Stealth and Viper brands.

Continuing the tradition of these brands, the Stealth product line will offer a full series of value-based cards while Viper will target high-end gamers. True to its heritage, Diamond will continue to remain chip vendor neutral, offering consumers products from multiple vendors to provide maximum performance and value at each price point.

The first new Diamond graphics cards will begin shipping in November and are planned to feature technology from both of the leading graphics chip vendors, ATI Technologies and NVIDIA. As with previous Diamond products, the new lines will include bundles of popular software titles and additional offers and will be available at national retailers and through distribution.

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More competition is good.

Best Data is the one reviving the Diamond brand since they bought the assets from SonicBlue. Hopefully they'll return it to its heyday. I recall fondly the days of yesteryear the good cards Diamond had.
http://www.diamondmm.com/

[Sotos]

DIAMOND is back in Market...

I do not believe these :eek: :eek: :eek:

What GPUs will use for their products????

[Darth Rancid]

Now they say "Stealth" will be the high end gaming cards, and Viper will be value-oriented cards....
Thats the wrong way around! And for what will they use the "Monster" name?.... and "Speedstar"?.....

I once owned a Viper II.

[D.K.Tronics]

This news nearly brought a tear to my eye. :)

I still own the Diamond Monster 1 & 2, and those nice bundled games, Mechwarrior 2, Ultimate Race Pro, and some others.
And I still have a diamond stealth 2Mb PCI video card, for my nice MAME PC cabinet. :D Although I'm thinking of moving to a Matrox Millennium 4Mb PCI.

[sxotty]

Yeah they screwed it up I had a diamond viper V770 Ultra (TNT 2 Ultra) Actually I still have it, my favorite card :angel: .

I any case It looks like they will use ATI and NVidia, heck maybe they will end up using other chipsets as well. Looks like market is going to heat up now that AIB can use any chipset they want eh.

[volt]

Not a big deal unless they will be competitive (price wise)

[ChrisRay]

More companies is always good for Nvidia and ATI tho. More companies with more chip orders generally equals increased availability.


However, Not always the case if there arent many chips to begin with (Nv30)

[The Baron]

Ooh. Maybe they'll make ATI, NVIDIA, XGI, and PowerVR cards :D

[sebazve]

OMFG they are back....pfft i still remember my viper II (savage 2000):p :banghead:

[MUYA]

Originally posted by sebazve
OMFG they are back....pfft i still remember my viper II (savage 2000):p :banghead:

I still remember my Viper 330! with a riva128 on it!!!! :P

MUYA

[The Baron]

Next thing you know, NVIDIA will bring back STB! :eek:

[jAkUp]

wow.. this is great, i had a monster 3d II back in the day.. diamondmm was a great company, and they made great products, the monster II was just about the best voodoo2 card you could get...

cant wait to see what they bring:)

[The Baron]

Originally posted by jAkUp
wow.. this is great, i had a monster 3d II back in the day.. diamondmm was a great company, and they made great products, the monster II was just about the best voodoo2 card you could get...

cant wait to see what they bring:)
BINGO! It's what started me on this whole mess. :)

They'll sell plenty of cards just for nostalgia's sake...

[Sotos]

Man Diamond was one of the best companies in quality in 3dfx days
and very known for some of their products

Their latest VIPER 2 with the savage 2000 was the worst card they ever produced...

But previous cards like Viper 770 (Nvidia tnt2) was VERY GOOD :)

I am glad they are back...:)

[bkswaney]

Originally posted by sxotty
Yeah they screwed it up I had a diamond viper V770 Ultra (TNT 2 Ultra) Actually I still have it, my favorite card :angel: .

I any case It looks like they will use ATI and NVidia, heck maybe they will end up using other chipsets as well. Looks like market is going to heat up now that AIB can use any chipset they want eh.


Me to... i had a v770u myself. Great card. :) :)

When they dropped NV and went to Savage they lost it all.

[gokickrocks]

i still have a diamond viper v550 and a edge 3d running strong...

[sbp]

Originally posted by Darth Rancid
Now they say "Stealth" will be the high end gaming cards, and Viper will be value-oriented cards....
Thats the wrong way around! And for what will they use the "Monster" name?.... and "Speedstar"?.....

I once owned a Viper II. Yeah, Gamespot updated their newspost and change the positions of Viper and Stealth to what they should be.

from updated Gamespot newspost http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/news_6077469.html
The company will market the Viper line to hardcore gamers, while the Stealth line will be marketed to a more value-conscious consumer. Diamond will be run as an independent division of Best Data, the company said.You can tell it was done because MUYA's Viper & Stealth Back! news from early this morning quoted the original Gamespot newspost. http://www.nvnews.net/#1067431433

[gmontem]

Sweet. I hope they have plans to roll out a new line of Monster Sound soundcards, too, maybe one using a revised version of NVIDIA's SoundStorm. :)

[sxotty]

That would make me way to excited, I still have a mx300 kicking around btw (that was a soundcard at least I think that is the numbers (it sounded good too btw)

[gmontem]

Would be one sweet deal if Diamond's next soundcard will still contain the WaveBlaster header so people can still use their Yamaha or Roland daughterboards. :)

[sebazve]

Originally posted by Sotos
Man Diamond was one of the best companies in quality in 3dfx days
and very known for some of their products

Their latest VIPER 2 with the savage 2000 was the worst card they ever produced...

But previous cards like Viper 770 (Nvidia tnt2) was VERY GOOD :)

I am glad they are back...:)

actually my first diamonf card was the viper 550 (TNT) then when the time came to upgrade i was between the 770 or the viper II well after all the PR crap S3 got me. OMFG that card was a terrible pain in the ass that i actually ended up liking it.:p :D .

[bkswaney]

Originally posted by sebazve
actually my first diamonf card was the viper 550 (TNT) then when the time came to upgrade i was between the 770 or the viper II well after all the PR crap S3 got me. OMFG that card was a terrible pain in the ass that i actually ended up liking it.:p :D .


hehehe... I had a 550 and then got the 770. :)

They were both kickass cards tho.

I would buy from them again.

[Sledge]

I had a Diamond Viper TNT2 Ultra and the MX200 and MX300 sound cards. The sound cards were both Aureal chipsets. The MX200 had a Roland daughtercard. You wouldn't belive how good MIDI sounded on it. The MX300 had A3D 2.0 and took positional audio to a new level. It beat the living hell out of EAX back then.

[CainSyris]

I remember fondly Diamond's V770 TNT2Ultra. It was one of the most impressive cards I can remember (actually made me drop my Matrox G200 with Guillemot Voodoo2 12meg SLI). I also remember well my Diamond Aureal 2 Monster sound card.

That said, I don't see why this is a big deal. Its obviously different execs, a different company, and merely someone trying to play off the old name. No news on which chipsets they'll use for each line or even any news on the sound card front. Seems like another Visiontek or Hercules, pale shadows of what they once were. Visiontek being a stooge of another company that took them over when they went bankrupt and Hercules being the slave to Guillemot, which bought them after they collapsed under their own weight.

Its just another company using the name. And before you argue how Hercules is still good, I'll say that Guillemot was good to start with. Its just they didn't have the name recognition and the only way they felt they could get that was by raiding the remains of Hercules for their name.

[sxotty]

Man this is all about reminiscing we all know that Diamond is nothing related to what it was, but it is still fun to remember those heady days when we thought the sky was the.... ah never mind :)