CHATSWORTH, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 03/01/06 -- Diamond Multimedia (www.diamondmm.com), a leading manufacturer of PC graphics cards, sound cards and communications products, today announced it has begun shipping the Viper X1900 XTX, which has tested out as the fastest graphics card on the market with a blazing 90 nm clock speed and unrivaled video quality.

The X1900 card represents the pinnacle of achievement in a wide-ranging series of high-performance graphics cards produced by Diamond and featuring the powerful ATI Radeon chip. The X1900 also features DirectX9, which brings three times the shader power to applications such as 3D games and fully supports the state-of-the-art Shader Model 3.0 architecture.

The X1900 is also equipped with ATI's Avivo video and display platform, which enables a High-Definition visual experience, and allows for universal connectivity to various digital devices, including home theater systems, LCD monitors, HDTVs, projectors and notebooks. With resolution as high as 2560 x 1600 (used in Apple Cinema, for example), the X1900 is powerful enough to drive two LCD displays while maintaining stunning clarity. Avivo offers sharper display for video and photos compared with conventional cards, as well as "universal display connectivity" -- which eliminates the long-standing barrier of being able to display PC graphics on a variety of consumer electronics devices, including big-screen televisions.

Yet another breakthrough is the X1900's support of High Dynamic Range (HDR) with full post-processing capabilities, including anti-aliasing.

The Viper X1900 XTX uses the Radeon X1900 GPU, with a 256MB interface using the PCI Express data bus. The Radeon's Ultra-Threaded Shader Engine will handle up to 128 threads at once, as well as up to 48 simultaneous shader processors, featuring a revolutionary 3-to-1 shader-to-texture ratio.

The connectors included are DVI, VGA, TV-Out/HDTV and VIVO. Minimum system requirements for the card are an Intel Pentium 4 of AMD Athlon 64 FX CPU running at a minimum of 2.4 GHz, PCIE slot, 128MB system RAM, 200MB available hard disk space, a CD- or DVD-ROM drive, and an ATX 2.0 420 Watt power supply or higher. Also needed is a Super VGA or DVI-I compatible monitor. The X1900 will run under Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Windows XP, Windows XP 64 and Windows XP Media Center environments.

The Viper X1900 also comes with extensive software, including the Catalyst Control Center, the award-winning feature-rich 3D software application. Catalyst automatically configures optimal settings for your system, and is packed with features that go far beyond traditional driver configuration software.

All Diamond video cards also carry the Diamond guarantee of quality assurance. Unlike many cards that are simply first to market, Diamond carefully tests and retests every new model for its ratio of performance to reliability. Diamond is legendary in the PC video card business for its low return rates -- less than 1 percent versus an industry average of approximately 10 percent -- and attributes this to its intensive testing, detailed product knowledge down to the component level, superior relationships with suppliers and unyielding commitment to quality. Diamond cards use superior connectors, cables and components, as well as undergo more thorough testing for heat susceptibility and durability, and this is directly reflected in its superior track record of longevity at the highest levels of performance.

The X1900 XTX will retail at $599. It is available through most North American distributors, such as Ingram Micro, Tech Data and D&H along with most leading computer retailers and e-commerce sites.

About Diamond Multimedia

For the past two decades, Diamond Multimedia has been widely recognized as a pioneer in the graphics, sound and communications industries and as a key player in launching the multimedia revolution. Through the process of specialization, multimedia companies have become nearly extinct, each concentrating on a few aspects but never again addressing a complete experience. In that time evolution and natural selection has transformed Diamond into a new type of multimedia company, a company that brings all of the differing technologies together under one brand. Diamond Multimedia is partnered with some of the top technology companies in the world with an in-house team of industry veterans.

Diamond provides the absolute best quality in advanced graphics, digital television, communications and sound hardware solutions for home and business users, enabling them to create, access and experience compelling new media content from their desktops and through the internet.

Diamond products are available to the public throughout North America through retailers, resellers and systems integrators as well as top technology product distributors. Diamond products stand for performance, quality and value. Corporate headquarters are located in Chatsworth, California.

Media Contact:
Rita Tennyson
TERPIN COMMUNICATIONS
(310) 821-6100 x104
rita@terpin.com