Diamond Multimedia Launches New Sonic Impact Line Of PCI Audio Accelerators for Cost-Effective Audio On the PC

Business Wire, March 17, 1998

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 17, 1998--

Sonic Impact S70 Combines PCI Architecture, 64-Voice Hardware

Wavetable Synthesis, and Multiple O/S Support for Mainstream PC

Users

Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:DIMD), a leader in interactive multimedia acceleration, today announced the company's new Sonic Impact line of PCI-based audio accelerators designed for consumers and business users wanting to upgrade their PCs with the very latest advancements in audio technology.

The first product in this new line, the Sonic Impact S70, delivers robust PCI acceleration and a top-quality audio utility bundle at an aggressive estimated retail price (ERP) of $69.95. Diamond Multimedia's Sonic Impact S70 will ship to distributors, system integrators and retailers this month.

Unlike yesterday's ISA-based sound cards, Diamond's Sonic Impact is forward engineered to exploit the latest advances in PC audio, including PCI performance gains, compatibility with Microsoft's PC98 specification and new application programming interfaces (APIs) DirectSound(R) and DirectSound3D(R) and ease of installation with PCI plug-and-play support. Powered by ESS Technologies' Maestro-2 audio chipset, Diamond's new Sonic Impact S70 features a 64-voice DLS-compatible hardware wavetable synthesizer with effects and multi-stream audio support for up to 32 independent CD-quality audio streams for true audio fidelity.

In addition, Diamond's Sonic Impact provides complete support for real-mode DOS, Windows(R) 95/98, Windows NT(R) 4.0 programs and PC games. For a features list and comparison chart, see Appendix A at the end of this press release.

"There has been a rapid paradigm shift in the PC audio market. Educated PC users know that PCI-based sound cards are required to satisfy the low CPU utilization and high bandwidth requirements of today's advanced PC98 system requirements, multimedia software, Internet content and PC games" said David Watkins, vice president and general manager of the Multimedia Division at Diamond Multimedia. "With our winning, price-performance Sonic Impact products and our powerful 3D gaming Monster Sound audio accelerators, Diamond Multimedia is delivering high-quality PC sound solutions to meet the audio needs of PC consumers."

"Diamond Multimedia has capitalized on the ESS Maestro-2 audio chipset technology to deliver a price performance leader for the PC audio market," said Nicholas Aretakis, vice president of marketing at ESS Technologies. "The Sonic Impact S70 is an innovative PCI audio solution that raises the bar for business and consumer PC audio performance."

Diamond Sonic Impact Delivers the PCI Advantage

By employing a PCI-bus design, Diamond Multimedia's Sonic Impact S70 offers a significant performance boost to the PC. Unlike legacy ISA audio solutions which can use as much as 30 to 50 percent of a system's CPU, the Sonic Impact S70 processes audio functions on the PCI-bus, dramatically lowering CPU utilization to less than five percent.

Additionally, as the fully-accelerated Sonic Impact S70 off-loads sound processing from the CPU, it improves system performance in other areas of the PC such as better graphics and faster network downloads. With ten times the bandwidth of the ISA bus, the Sonic Impact S70's PCI interface can support 32 sound channels and provide larger sample rates for richer, more realistic sounding wave files.

Diamond's Sonic Impact S70 also offers the full advantage of easy plug-and-play installation under Windows 95/98, whereas ISA-based sound cards require users to set jumpers, and resolve IRQ conflicts and I/O addresses during the installation process.

"Diamond Multimedia's Sonic Impact S70 audio accelerator is a solid choice for consumers who need the performance advantages of using a PCI-based audio solution at an affordable price," Todd Moore, PC audio product manager at Diamond Multimedia. "Whether the user is playing games, exploring multimedia software, composing music or streaming audio over the Internet, Sonic Impact delivers high-quality audio playback while leaving the system's CPU virtually free to process power-hungry tasks like 3D graphics and Internet connectivity."

Diamond's Sonic Impact to Include High-Quality Audio Tools

The retail version of Diamond's Sonic Impact S70 audio accelerator will come bundled with a suite of PC audio applications and utilities from Midisoft, including Audio Works Pro(TM) 2.0 Wave Editor, Studio Recording Session (MIDI editor), and Internet Sound Bar.

Diamond Multimedia

Diamond Multimedia is driving the interactive multimedia market by providing advanced solutions for home, business and professional desktop computer users, enabling them to create, access and experience compelling new media content from their desktops and through the Internet. Diamond accelerates multimedia from the Internet to the hard drive with products that include the Stealth and Viper(R) series of media accelerators, the Monster series of entertainment 3D and sound accelerators, the Fire series of professional 3D and SCSI accelerators, and the Supra(R) series of modems. Diamond also markets DVD and video phone kits. Diamond's common stock is traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol DIMD, and its web site address is www.diamondmm.com.