Closer Look

The card is simply designed. In our age of complex multi-layer PCBs, huge cooling systems and powerful graphics processors, the Diamond Stealth S110 looks very unpretentious.

There’s nothing of an interest here, only the jumper is unusual. It switches the reproduction standards of the TV-out. This procedure is performed in a majority of cards either automatically or through the driver settings.

You can also notice the landing place for a Rage Theater chip in the front part of the PCB and places for audio connectors at the back. It means that this product may also come in a VIVO version.

There are few additional elements onboard; only the electrolytic capacitors deserve some attention – it’s clear that the manufacturer made the card using the bare minimum of parts.

The TSOP-packaged memory is manufactured by Samsung, has 5ns access time and is rated for 200 (400DDR) MHz frequency, but actually works at 190 (380DDR) MHz. Note the holographic sticker with the logo of Sapphire Technology on the D-Sub connector – that’s a clear indication of the birthplace of this device.

The card is even less interesting from the back side: four memory chips, a couple of stickers with various serial numbers and a place for installation of a D-Sub next to the DVI connector. It means that this card can come equipped with two D-Sub connectors, which is rare today. Well, I guess there’s little chance that the buyer of the Diamond Stealth S100 is at the same time an owner of a monitor with the DVI-I interface.

The core of the graphics processor is cooled down with a simple aluminum heatsink with the logotype of ATI Technologies, which is dead-glued to the GPU surface; at least I couldn’t tear it off applying a reasonable force. I abandoned my further attempts in order not to damage the chip. The R280 chip itself works at 250MHz just like it should. The thermal conditions are not very good at that, the GPU heatsink as well as the memory chips would heat up considerably – like burning your fingers. A simplest fan would be good here, but the manufacturer just mounted a not-very-efficient heatsink and stopped at that. Of course, the device belongs to the value sector, but this economy cannot be justified: Gigabyte and FIC used to install much more efficient needle-shaped heatsinks on their versions of the RADEON 9200, which did their job well. And some manufacturers were even generous to cap the construction with a small fan.

The origin of the card was once again confirmed as it was identified by the system as Sapphire Technology RADEON 9200 Atlantis. The 2D quality was up to the mark; at least, the image was crisp in all resolutions including 1600x1200@85Hz. Overclocking was impossible like with any other RADEON 9200 that we encountered: the manufacturer of the GPU had locked the frequencies up.