I've always been a bit suspicious of Diamond products, mostly because they change chipsets like some people change wives. However, this is a good one, not least of all because its a very fast board at a very good price.

The Stealth II uses the Rendition 2100 Verite 2100 chipset, as opposed to the 2200. The primary differences are a lower maximum refresh rate and a fixed amount of RAM (4 meg). But at $99 US on the street this has to qualify as the bargain of the century.

Under 3D Winbench '97 the board scores 125. This is a gigantic leap from the first generation Verite chipset and it shows. While the Verite series will not do Glide, the 3dfx API, under D3d the board does very well indeed. The best part is that many developers support Rendition directly, so you can get the same benefit as the Glide API, bypassing D3d and getting both extra speed as well as extra features. Some of the coming sims that will directly support the 2100 and 2200 are Flying Nightmares II and Fighter Squadron: Screamin Demons.

Windows 2d performance is excellent, passing even the original Matrox Millenium. I couldn't tell any difference between this board and my own 4 meg Millenium under WIN 97. Running in DOS I loaded up Comanche 3 and Armored Fist II. Since the Stealth II has built in VESA 2.0 its extremely fast in DOS also. This is one of the areas that Rendition has done some hard work since their original chipset was quite weak in this area. It won't matter for most gamers since few sims of note will be running under DOS from here on out.

SUMMARY�

If you are a Longbow 2 fanatic or are waiting on the edge of your chair for F22: ADF and TAW and need to run Glide, this board isn't for you. If you are eagerly waiting for FN2, Red Baron II or FS:SDOE and want a single 2d/3d solution, run out and buy this race horse. It'll run your old DOS games no questions asked, and it does WIN97 with applomb. �

Better still, you can later add a VOODOO 2 alongside and have the best of BOTH worlds. V2 isn't that far away, and the combined solution is likely to be found under many a hood in the new year. �

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