Diamond ate its words today by announcing it would develop a 12MB video board that will go up against the recently announced 12MB boards from Creative Labs and Jazz Multimedia.

　　When GameSpot News previously talked to Diamond, the option of a 12MB board wasn't part of its new-product strategy. Diamond's stance was simple, deliver a card with great support at a price that people would jump for.

　　With the announcement that Creative Labs was launching an 8MB and a 12MB board, many tech-minded gamers thought that meant that the company was showing some muscle in the 3D market - something good for competition. And indeed it was, as almost immediately thereafter, Jazz Multimedia threw its hat into the 12MB Voodoo2 ring as well with its own announcement. But there was no sign of Diamond.

　　Well, on Thursday, Diamond muscled right back into the fray by announcing a Voodoo2-based 12MB Monster 3D II board that will launch sometime in the second quarter of 1998 and sell for an estimated retail price of US$299.99.

　　"Although today there are very few games on the market designed to fully capitalize on the additional 4MB of texture memory on a 12MB board, by year-end there should be a significant number of games available," said Ken Wirt, vice president of corporate marketing at Diamond Multimedia Systems. "Therefore, we are expanding our Monster 3D II line to include the 12MB version aimed at no-compromise, cutting-edge gamers who want to be ready for future PC games that require large amounts of texture memory."

　　The board will have all the features of the 8MB board but with an 8MB EDO DRAM total texture engine and a 4MB EDO DRAM frame buffer. Also, it will support a maximum resolution of 1024x768 when two Diamond Monster 3D boards are linked together via the MEGAMonster cable.

　　We also confirmed with Diamond that if you buy an 8MB Monster 3D II, it will be MEGAMonster compatible with the new 12MB board (unless you feel the need for two 12MB boards and can actually wait to have a Voodoo2). Early adopters of new Voodoo2 technology, therefore, needn't fear buying a board that won't be compatible when the 12MB board releases.