S3 videocards

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Diamond Viper 770 Ultra

The Diamond Viper 770 Ultra, unlike most TNT2 boards, is not based on the original reference design. The board consists of a nVidia TNT2 Ultra chip clocked at the default 150mhz, and 32MB of SDRAM clocked at the standard 183mhz. The TNT2 Ultra is the big brother of the TNT2, and, actually, both are exactly the same design. After manufacture, the chips are tested, and those capable of higher clock speeds are dubbed as TNT2 Ultras, while the rest stay TNT2s. The TNT2 Ultra is still a very powerful chip, and, until the introduction of the GeForce/Savage 200/Rage Fury MAXX generation, was the king of the industry. The 32MB of 5.5ns SDRAM is divided up among 8 chips, which are arranged in banks of four on the top and right sides of the chip. Although it is intended to run at only 183mhz, with a little pushing, it can easily reach 200mhz. The Viper 770 Ultra is a vanilla TNT2 Ultra card, that, although it doesn't quite reach the performance of the Hercules TNT2U, it doesn't have the price either.

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Diamond Viper 770

The Diamond Viper 770, un like most TNT2 boards, is not based on the original reference design. The board consists of a nVidia TNT2 chip clocked at the default 125mhz, and 32MB of SDRAM clocked at the standard 150mhz. The TNT2 is the little brother of the TNT2 Ultra, and, actually, both are exactly the same design. After manufacture, the chips are tested, and those capable of higher clock speeds are dubbed as TNT2 Ultras, while the rest stay TNT2s. The TNT2 is still a fairly powerful chip, and, with the TNT2U was the king of the industry until the introduction of the GeForce/Savage 200/Rage Fury MAXX generation. The 32MB of SDRAM is divided up among 8 chips, which are arranged in banks of four on the top and right sides of the chip. Although it is intended to run at only 150mhz, with a little pushing, it can reach nearly 175mhz. The Viper 770 is a vanilla TNT2 card, that, although it doesn't quite reach the performance of the Hercules TNT2, it doesn't have the price either.

Diamond Stealth III S540 Xtreme

The Diamond Stealth III S540 Xtreme is based on S3's Savage4 reference board, but clocked higher. Although it features 32MB of SDRAM, the Savage 4 is meant to be a value card. The Savage 4 runs at an odd 160mhz for the core, and 166mhz for the SDRAM. This yields fair performance for a low-end system, provided you are willing to live with low resolutions. Because of the higher clock, the maximum playable res in modern games is about 1024 x 768 in 16bit color. Although it is capable of rendering 32bit color scenes, this feature also limits the resolution to about 800 x 600. In fact, the Savage 4 is not far behind the TNT2's in performance, but a large amount in price.

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Diamond Stealth III S540

The Diamond Stealth III S540 is based on S3's Savage4 reference board. Although it features 32MB of SDRAM, the Savage 4 is meant to be a value card. The Savage 4 runs at a solid 125mhz for the core, and 143mhz for the SDRAM. This yields fair performance for a low-end system, provided you are willing to live with low resolutions. About the maximum playable res in modern games is 1024 x 768 in 16bit color. Although it is capable of rendering 32bit color scenes, this feature limits the resolution to 800 x 600. The figures, however, show that the Savage 4 is way behind the TNT2's in performance and price.

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Diamond Monster Fusion

The Diamond Monster Fusion is a 3dfx Banshee-based board with a twist. The standard heatsink was replaced with a low-profile fan/heatsink combo, thus allowing the core clock speed to be increased to 110mhz. The Banshee chipset is a modification of the Voodoo 2 chip, with one texture pipeline removed, and a 2D core added. Another change in the chip was the clock rate being upgraded to 110mhz over the 90mhz of a standard Voodoo 2. The board also carried a standard 16MB of SDRAM or faster SGRAM on the AGP model, over the V2's 8 or 12MB. These changes allowed the Banshee to out-perform the Voodoo 2 in most tests except those in multi-texturing games, where the Banshee's lack of a second pixel pipeline is felt. A major handicap of the whole Banshee series, which is shared with the Monster Fusion is their lack of ability to render in 32bit color. This caused many customers to opt for the more feature-rich V550. Although it dominates the Banshee field, the Monster Fusion pales in comparison to any more modern card.

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Diamond Viper 550

The Diamond Viper 550 is a near copy of the nVidia TNT reference design. As is standard, the core was clocked at 90mhz, and the 16MB of SDRAM at 125mhz. In its time, about a year and a half ago, the TNT was the hottest thing going, except for the 3dfx Banshee. Nowadays, its old hat. Very old hat. At the time of its conception, there was some controversy as to whether the TNT of Banshee was faster. The Banshee posted higher scores in 16bit games, but was incapable of 32bit color. There was still controversy in this field until the TNT2's hit the shelves, and everyone scrambled to buy them.. The general consensus on this card is that it was the best overall TNT made, but was quickly overshadowed and replaced by the TNT2.

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Diamond Monster 3D II

The Monster 3D II is Diamond's 3D-only accelerator based on the 3dfx Voodoo 2 chipset. The Monster 3D name was a carry-over from the previous card, which incorporated the original 3dfx Voodoo chip. For the most part, the Monster 3D II performs like any other Voodoo 2. Also, like most Voodoo 2's this card sports 12MB of onboard memory. Because of it's old architecture and slow, 90mhz clock speed, this board is best used in the SLI (Scan Line Interleaving) configuration. In this setup, two V2 boards are connected together by an internal cable, effectively doubling the processing power. In this setup, the boards are capable of 1024x768 pixel rendering, while a single board can only manage 800x600. A SLI setup can surpass the V3 2000 and 3000 versions in Glide rendering, but falls short of the 183mhz V3 3500TV. A Monster 3D II can make a worthwhile edition to gamer's rig who wants both compatibility with nVidia's latest offerings, and full compatibility with Glide games.

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Diamond Monster 3D

The Monster 3D is based on 3dfx's age old Voodoo chipset, that first gave them their claim to fame. This card was the first consumer-level board to fully accelerate 3D graphics. This chip gave 3dfx the initiative to become the large and powerful graphics company it is today. Indeed, this chip completely lacked competition except for the half-hearted nVidia RIVA 128. This acceleration of 3dfx's new API, Glide, allowed 3D games to become much more immersive, and run faster than ever. As was standard with this chipset, the Monster 3D included 4MB of EDO memory, a large amount for the time. However, this was in the days when Glide support was the deciding factor of whether to buy a game or not, and times have changed drasticely. The Monster 3D ceased to be anything to brag about several years ago.

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