Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc has released two new boards, one aimed at systems integrators and one at the home and small business user. The board for integrators – the SpeedStar A50 graphics accelerator – is based on Silicon Integrated Systems Corp’s 6326AGP chip, with a 200MHz random access memory digital to analog converter (RAMDAC) and 4Mb or 8Mb of synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM). The accelerator offers support for Direct X 5.0 and OpenGL application programming interfaces (APIs) and support for Intel Corp’s AGP 2X port. Diamond has also launched the Monster Fusion 2D/3D board – based on 3Dfx Interactive’s Banshee chip. The 128-bit design has 16Mb of RAM onboard and a 250Mhz RAMDAC. The board is compatible with API’s such as 3Dfx’s Glide, OpenGL and Direct3D and available in AGP and PCI version. No pricing is available on the A50 yet but it should ship in mid-September, the Monster Fusion is available now at around $150. Both boards work under Windows 95 and NT.
