I think I was ten when my father and I bought our first PC at a computer show around 1992.  We pieced it together from parts from each vendor who had the best deal on a given peripheral.  I remember looking down at the video card selections at each vendor booth, seeing the DiamondMM (Diamond Multimedia) cards at the top of the list. Diamond, at the time, had the best performing video cards in the market, the Stealth 24 VLB just preceding the top of the line Viper P9000.  This scheme carried on for years with the Stealth series featuring mainly less expensive S3 series chipsets including the Virge and Savage4 while the Viper carried exclusively high end nVidia Riva chips. They also added in the Monster3D which made use of 3DFX Voodoo line. This trend continued until 1999 when Diamond merged with S3 Graphics, and all of the ensuing cards released carried the unimpressive S3 Savage2000 line of GPU’s. These cards were a market failure, and the Diamond name disappeared from the video card market.

In 2003, Best Data purchased what was left of Diamond MM creating the current iteration of Diamond Multimedia as an independent division of Best Data.  They used the newly created division to market products such as video cards, tv-tuner cards, sound cards and various connectivity devices in true DiamondMM fashion. The new video cards now carry exclusively ATI series chips.

HardOCP has put together a nice review of the Diamond Viper X1600 PRO 512 MB PCI-Express which is Diamond’s current mid-high end line, second only to the flagship Viper X1900 line of products. Be sure to check out www.diamondmm.com to see details on the new DiamondMM line of products.