Diamond Viper / Viper SE
The first of the Viper series was released in 1993, and became Diamond's high-end offering that was previously held by their Stealth range.
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Released | 1993 (Viper), November 1994 (Viper SE) |
| Bus | VESA Local Bus or PCI | |
| Chipset | Weitek P9000 + Weitek 5286 / Oak OTI087X (Viper) Weitek P9100 (Viper SE) |
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| Standards | Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA | |
| Memory | 2 MB VRAM (for P9000) + 1 MB DRAM (5286) | |
| Ports | 15-pin DSUB (video out) 26-pin VGA Feature connector |
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| RAMDAC | Brooktree Bt485 110 MHz or Sierra HiColor (Viper) Brooktree Bt485 135 MHz (Viper SE) |
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| Part # | - | |
| FCC ID | FTUVIPERA (Viper VLB) FTUPCIVPRA (Viper PCI) FTUPCI91KBT (Viper SE) |
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| Price | At launch: $549 (Viper) Dec 1994: $379 (Viper SE MSRP) |
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| See Also | Diamond Stealth Pro |
The Viper was an odd design choice in 1993, after Diamond had good success with the Stealth Pro. Based around the Weitek P9000 chip as the Windows accelerator, it was coupled with either a Weitek 5286 or Oak Technology OTI087x to handle the 2D VGA work. I'm not sure if this is accurate, but the Wikipedia article suggests that cards with the Oak chip only came with 256 KB of video memory for the 2D portion.
The Viper's standard RAMDAC was a Brooktree Bt485 which ran at 110 MHz, though Diamond offered a Sierra HiColor DAC as a cost option for this card.
It's worth noting that the Viper VLB was known for its poor performance, due to its sluggish VGA chip which can only run on a 16-bit interface.
The Viper SE followed in November 1994, with the more integrated Weitek P9100 in place of both the P9000 and 5286/OTI087x chips. The P9100 got an integrated VGA core as well as PCI bus support. Its core clock was alsoo increased to 50 MHz. The Brooktree RAMDAC remained the same but its clock speed was increased to 135 MHz. These were available in both VLB and PCI form.
A later card called Viper PCI was also sold, that unlike the original Viper in PCI form came with the P9100 - this was most likely just a re-marketing of the original Viper but with the newer Weitek chip. I don't know what differences exist between this later Viper PCI and the Viper SE, if any.
Board Revisions
Several board revisions are known to exist for the Viper: A7, B1, B3, E3 and E4.
For the Viper VLB, board rev.A7 used traditional low-profile DIP packages for its VRAM, while later revisions used ZIP memory packages.
Note the BIOS ROM code is not interchangeable between VESA Local Bus and PCI cards.
Competition
The Viper VLB went up against a range of early VESA Local Bus "GUI accelerators" back in 1993, including the Hercules Graphite VL (HG510), Genoa 8500 VL-20, Number Nine #95GXE VL-Bus, Orchid Fahrenheit VA/VLB, STB Horizon VL, Cardinal Warpspeed, and ATI Graphics Ultra Pro (mach32). When compared to these, the Viper VLB performed the best. InfoWorld ran a benchmark comparison of all of these cards, with the Viper VLB scoring the top position with a VidMark of 86.88, though the rest of the pack weren't far behind.
Price was an important factor, and it didn't always mean you got a card that was far better just because you had deeper pockets. In second place was the Cardinal Warpspeed with a score VidMark of 84.84. In third place was the $595 Number Nine #9GXE VL-Bus with a score of 78.70. The Genoa 8500 scored third place with a VidMark of 75.89 even though it cost just $219 (under half the price of the Viper). Behind these were the Orchid Fahrenheit VA/VLB which came in fourth place with a score of 75.84 and the STB Horizon VL that scored 70.65. Interestingly, bottom of the pile was the ATI Graphics Ultra Pro mach32 with a VidMark of 61.11 despite it relatively high price tag of $499.
In the Media
Setting it Up
I have no information on how to configure the Viper or Viper SE.
Downloads
Operation Manual Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
Original Utility Disk (VLB) Comprises installer, DOS utilities and drivers for Windows 3.1 and Windows NT 3.5x. |
Original Utility Disk (PCI) Comprises installer, DOS utilities and drivers for Windows 3.1 (v1.06) and Windows NT 3.5x. |
Windows 95 VLB Drivers Viper VLB Windows 95 Accelerated ALPHA drivers v2.01. Supports the Viper Pro PCI, Viper SE PCI, and Viper VLB. Does not support Viper Pro\SE VLB or the Viper PCI. |
Windows 95 VLB Drivers Viper VLB Windows 95 Accelerated ALPHA drivers v2.15. Supports the VLB version of the Diamond Viper only. |
Windows 95 PCI Drivers Viper PCI Windows 95 Accelerated BETA drivers v2.14. Supports the PCI version of the Diamond Viper only. |
Windows 95 PCI Drivers Viper PCI Windows 95 Accelerated BETA drivers v2.15. Supports the PCI version of the Diamond Viper only. |
Windows 3.1x VLB Drivers Viper VLB Windows 3.1x drivers. |
Windows 3.1x PCI Drivers Viper PCI Windows 3.1x drivers. |
Windows NT 3.5x VLB Drivers Viper VLB Windows NT 3.51 drivers. |
Windows NT 3.5x PCI Drivers Viper PCI Windows NT 3.51 drivers. |
OS/2 2.1 VLB Drivers Viper VLB OS/2 v2.1 drivers. |
OS/2 2.1 PCI Drivers Viper PCI OS/2 v2.1 drivers. |
VPRMODE VLB Utility Viper VLB 'set mode' utility. |
VGA BIOS ROM Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
VGA BIOS ROM Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
VGA BIOS ROM Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
VGA BIOS ROM Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
VGA BIOS ROM for Viper PCI Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
VGA BIOS ROM for Viper PCI For Viper PCI cards only, *not* VLB. |
More Pictures
Original retail box for the Diamond Viper VLB (1993)
Diamond Viper PCI
Diamond Viper SE (1994)