The memory itself that Diamond have used is 25ns EDO Ram by Silicon Magic- not they had any choice in the matter. Currently there's no variation in terms of EDO memory chips. Silicon Magic's is the only memory certified for use with the Voodoo2 chipset, although rumours are that two other vendors have just been certified. My point being that no other Voodoo2 card manufacturer can currently boast that their memory is faster or better for overclocking than other manufacturers', as was the case when Voodoo Graphics based cards spread like rabbits a year ago. Having said that Tom found no real significant benefit in overclocking anyway. Although, pending Diamond Monster 3D II owners will be chuffed to bits due to a much easier overclocking method being at their disposal via the slider provided by Diamond's drivers. This can be easily located in the 'advanced' section of the Monster 3D II's display properties in the control panel. The slider allows you to pop your card(s) up to 95MHz, which is a fab. touch indeed.

As with any Diamond product one has come to expect a full entourage of bundled software and the Diamond Monster 3D II is no different. A tasty 8MB texture version of Heavy Gear by Activision is first up, which should keep you as busy as MechWarrior 2 did with your Voodoo Graphics. Next is a rather pleasing Special Edition Star Wars Game Pack, which includes a visually revamped version of X-Wing VS. Tie Fighter dubbed 'The Academy. Sadly the game still hasn't been 'revamped' enough to include enough meat for a single player game but nevertheless it's Star Wars and thus it gets away with it. Also included in the Special Edition Star Wars Game Pack are three level versions a piece of Shadows of the Empire (Battle for Hoth) and Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight (Pathways to The Force). The later should provide some entertainment- albeit with its outdated 3D engine and of course providing that by already owning the game prior to your purchase that you haven't finished it before. As for Shadows of The Empire... well the less said about that the better, it does work well with a Force Feedback stick though. Thankfully there's yet more meat to the Monster II 3D's sandwich, which comes in the form of an EA sampler CD. This CD has been slapped together full to the brim of EA's Glide based demos such as Need For Speed II SE, Wing Commander Prophecy, Andretti Racing and Nuclear Strike. None of these will cause you sleepless night, mind you. But you certainly won't mind trying them all out.

Once you've dabbled with all of the above, you can then divulge briefly into the complimentary EIDOS CD, which comes with a demo of Tomb Raider II and some movies of some of their up and coming games, such as, Daikatana and Final Fantasy VII etc... So yes, there's plenty to get your teeth into but there's nothing really all that new to have a dabble at. More importantly ONLY Heavy Gear has been optimised for the Voodoo2 specifically so other than frame rates you won't really notice anything special about your Diamond Monster 3D II when messing with the included games bundle, which is a shame. One more thing, where the heck is Incoming then? I mean it's being bundled with every other Voodoo2 board and it would have made a swank addition:)

Still, I've said it before and I'll say it again, buy your hardware for the hardware itself and not for the software that comes with it. Specifically with the Voodoo2 in mind, you'll most likely have and/or not even want to own the games that come with a particular games bundle. Nevertheless, there's still something to be said in the defence of a games bundle, but in my opinion it shouldn't warrant a significantely higher price. Diamond originally scored one over Creative by bundling games from the off with their 8MB card. When installing a Diamond Monster 3D II you can just leap into action, whilst with a bare bones 3D Blaster Voodoo2 one could perhaps be left with an empty feeling due to the lack of any software. Although Creative has since rectified this and 8MB versions of their 3D Blaster Voodoo2 do indeed come bundled with a swanky games bundle. So it's all square in love and war then.