On Monday, Diamond Multimedia announced specs of the sequel to its popular Monster 3D - the Monster 3D II. The board features 3Dfx Interactive's new Voodoo2 3D accelerator chipset and Diamond's own 8MB DRAM memory design.

　　Expected on shelves in March (one retailer reports the date as March 20), the board will retail for US$249.95 with an upgraded 3D game bundle. Initially the Monster 3D was introduced as $299.95. With the new lower pricing for the sibling and the firmly established 3Dfx chipset, this should make the board as popular as the first.

　　Rather than force gamers to play titles at only 640x480, the Monster 3D II will allow games to run with Z-buffering at a higher 800x600 and 1024x768 with the two boards. With double the memory of the initial Monster board (the 8MB is divided as 4MB frame buffer and 4MB texture memory), graphics are expected to go through the roof. We've seen what a 6MB board with the original 3Dfx Voodoo chipset looks like, and considering the power of the new Voodoo2 chip plus double the memory, you're going to have to dig into your pocket and get one of these new boards.

　　In a new incentive to make sure hard-core gamers get the board, Diamond has launched a unique pre-buy program that allows gamers to reserve the Monster 3D II at CompUSA and Babbages/Software Etc. stores. This appears to be the first time this has ever been done with hardware, and with such a successful track record, we expect it to be a popular one.

　　Games packed in with the boxed version of the board include: a full version of Activision's Heavy Gear, a special version of Eidos' Tomb Raider II, and a Special Edition Star Wars Game Pack (featuring Shadows of the Empire - Battle of Hoth, X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter: The Academy, and Jedi Knight - Dark Forces II). Other pack-ins include a demo disc with titles like Final Fantasy VII, Daikatana, Joint Strike Fighter, and Flight Unlimited II.

　　Software currently running under the original 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics chipset will be able to run on the new board but with as much as three times the performance, and games developed for Microsoft's Direct 3D, 3Dfx's Glide, and OpenGL will be able to run as well.

　　Definitely the best feature of the board has to be the MEGAMonster feature, which is the one to set most gamers into a frenzy. This allows gamers to buy two boards and attach them to one another with a short ribbon cable for twice the performance. One board gives many games as much as 60 frames per second, two boards attached via a special internal cable will allow over 100fps which makes for a much smoother game. The hope is that game developers will populate games with more intense graphics, elaborate settings, and more lifelike gameplay as framerates won't be much of a limitation anymore.

　　Diamond initially did not launch the MEGAMonster feature (called SLI - Scan Line Interleaving by 3Dfx) in the Monster 3D (even though it was a feature that was available for Diamond to build into the board) because the 3D accelerator market was unstable when the original was presented to gamers. With the success of the Monster 3D name, the company's products have been on the top of the graphics accelerator buyer's list for over six months (from July to December 1997, according to PC Data), and Diamond has decided that the need is there for gamers to bask in the amazing speed of two boards.

　　Diamond's vice president and general manager of the graphics business unit, Scott Vouri, said, "Unlike other 3Dfx products, Monster 3D II goes beyond the traditional reference board design with added power, enhanced driver support, and an awesome game bundle making it one top-notch solution."

　　When GameSpot News spoke to Diamond recently, we posed some obvious questions:

　　Will current Monster 3D gamers get anything for upgrading to the newer boards? Diamond said that it will be offering a trade-in program that will allow current Monster 3D users to receive $50 back if they purchase the new Monster 3D II boards.

　　Will gamers purchasing two boards get $50 in return for each board? Although Diamond didn't get into specifics on how extensive the trade-in program would be, it appears that gamers will only get $50 back on the first board purchase. But Scott Vouri told us that there would be a pricing initiative to gamers who wanted to buy two boards at one time.

　　Will Diamond be offering a board similar to Quantum3D's Obsidian boards that merge the chipsets and memory of two boards into one? Diamond isn't announcing any plans to do so. Diamond asked us if gamers would want such a feature. We feel that gamers like to have a little more space in their PCs and that the extra slot freed by the composite board might be an attractive option for hard-core gamers.

　　Since Diamond is running a promotion with CompUSA, will the offer to prepurchase a Monster 3D II board be extended to buying from CompUSA Direct on the Web? Yes it will. (GameSpot News checked and sure enough it is there.)

　　As more information comes in about the board, we'll keep you informed.