Review By Steve Angelly - September 28, 2005 Edited By Jonathan Martini
CONCLUSION
MSI P4N Diamond Motherboard
The MSI P4N Diamond has a great list of features; NVIDIA's feature-rich nForce4 SLI Intel Edition chipset, two Serial ATA and Gigabit Ethernet controllers, onboard SoundBlaster Live! 24-bit audio, and a BIOS with many options including an exhaustive menu of overclocking options. Furthermore, it has been stable throughout the barrage of tests that I threw at it. One couldn't ask for much more.
The Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit onboard sound with high definition EAX is a great addition for gamers. It offers audiophiles a potential workstation with good sound options. This also includes home-theatre buffs who can benefit from the onboard HD surround sound. The MSI P4N Diamond can be the base of a solid workstation, gaming rig, movie player, RAID-capable pc, with good surround sound music capability you are included too!
The only downside might be the price as the P4N Diamond is above the $200 mark. However, the options on this feature-rich motherboard are extensive and leave little, if any, wanting. I wish I could have had better luck with the overclocking but maybe a processor change (I am stuck with a locked processor with a multiplier of x17), Bios change (v1.28 was used for the review) would allow me to break the 200MHz FSb barrier.
MSI touched all the bases with the P4N Diamond.
Pros
Good layout
Options galore!
Ease of setup for SLI
Good performance with single card or dual cards in SLI
