Diamond is best known for its consumer-level cards, which enjoy considerable popularity. Competence in the design of 3D cards for the mainstream user does not always translate to the OpenGL sphere - thankfully this is not the case with the FireGL1.

The FireGL1 made quite an impression in our benchmarks, although you wouldnt think this from looking at it. Firstly there is the size of the card; where many of the high-end cards boast enormous footprints and multiple processors, the FireGL1 is tiny in both AGP and PCI interfaces. Apart from the GPU, the rest of the card is mainly taken up by SGRAM chips, making a total 32Mb of frame buffer.

The second distinction is that the FireGL1 achieves its performance without an overt geometry engine. The driver software is the key behind the FireGL1. Diamond has been guilty on occasion of unstable drivers but it seems to have hit the right vein on this occasion with a rock-steady, efficient driver that is feature-laden and includes discrete optimisations for the application environment that the card is used in.

With top marks in the Viewperf tests, for both the AGP and PCI cards, and a close second to the Oxygen GVX210 (which is double the price) in the Lightwave tests, the Diamond FireGL1 is a powerhouse that belies its looks and price tag.