Diamond Multimedia, the company that used to be a top maker of graphics cards and other multimedia hardware, is coming back to the market of leading-edge graphics accelerators with the world’s first ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT with 1GB of memory. But will those new Viper graphics cards be broadly available?

“AMD is a dynamic creator of this kind of technology. We have developed applications and opportunities that are unique for the 1GB card. This is one of the most exciting product releases we have done. This is a real first in the Graphics card business and we are proud to be the first AMD partner that brings the 1GB card to the market,” said said Bruce Zaman, chief executive of Diamond Multimedia.

ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT graphics cards with 1GB of memory use the same print-circuit boards (PCBs) like the 512MB versions, however, they use more advanced GDDR4 chips with higher capacity.

Diamond Multimedia declares that its Viper ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB graphics cards have increased clock-speeds of 825MHz/2100MHz for chip/memory, which is an increase from reference clock-speeds recommended by ATI, graphics product group of Advanced Micro Devices. Nonetheless, some graphics cards from Diamond will be clocked at 742MHz/2000MHz for chip/memory.

Earlier sources close to Advanced Micro Devices said that 1GB graphics boards powered by the code-named ATI R600 graphics processing units said that the GPU developer had no plans to promote graphics cards with 1GB of memory. Nevertheless, the company allows its partners to configure ATI Radeon-based products according to their needs.

Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB graphics cards are available at select system integrators. Retail availability timeframe and price details are unclear.