MSI P35 Diamond tested

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Product: MSI P35 Diamond Motherboard
Website: Product details
System Requirements: Intel 775-pin CPU, DDR3 memory
Price: Approx. £155

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MSI HAS SUPPLIED the INQ with the firm's latest and greatest P35-based motherboard, along with a bundle of accessories.

The board.

As with the majority of motherboards from the P35 generation, the board supports a 1333MHz FSB CPUs, including the Core 2 Quad, and DDR3 memory.

MSI's site indicates the board is 'coming soon', but we've noticed it at a least two retailers using this Google product search.

The MSI P35 Diamond is also one of the first motherboards that comes coupled with Creative X-Fi support - which necessitates the need for an additional PCI-express X-Fi riser card.

The X-Fi card.

Oddly, the motherboard actually has on-board sound - courtesy of the integrated Realtek ALC888T audio chip, which you can use as standard via the audio I/O seen on the motherboard's connection selection. This is unlike MSI's P6N Diamond which comes with X-Fi audio fully integrated on-board.

The motherboard I/O.

What appears similar to a modem also comes bundled with the board. This is in fact an accessory for use with 'MSI SkyTel' - a feature that lets you plug a standard telephone head-set into the motherboard and make internet VOIP calls via the ubiquitous Skype. Asus also provide something similar with some boards called TeleSky.

The VOIP card.

The addition of the on-board audio chip is explained by the presence of this SkyTel board. The VOIP features of the ALC888T are used by the dumb-telephone add-in, and thus it's a necessity to keep the chip present.

The importance of this accessory shouldn't be understated, and allows the simple use of Skype/VOIP without an expensive additional VOIP-specific headset or the clumsy use of a PC microphone. We'd like to see this implemented more by even motherboard manufacturers.

Though MSI could do with bundling more literature with the board - there was no mention of the device in the literature, nor any software or drivers. Similarly the X-Fi isn't mentioned anywhere, adding to the sense that these features were bolted-on at the last minute. Examining MSI's technical sites etc will also offer no clues that these features are bundled in (but MSI and retailers insist they are). At least some of MSI's press-releases spoke up about the components.

The heat-pipe design of the motherboard, dubbed 'MSI Circu-Pipe' is quite brilliant, and looks similar to some kind of roller-coaster.

The heat-piping up-close.

The board only takes DDR3 memory - it has four banks allowing up to 8GB. Fortunately for those with DDR2 who don't wish to also upgrade their memory, a very similar board entitled the ' P35 Diamond Combo' may be more suitable (no UK link as of yet, but you could also try the P35 Neo Combo).

MSI's press releases all state that the solid capacitors are all made in Japan, hopefully ensuring no poor quality components that are likely to fry anytime soon.

Performance is as expected for a P35 board, something that differs only very marginally between manufacturers. Motherboards nowadays are bought based on features and support, and this board certainly has plenty of additional components to attract consumers from competitive brands.

As usual you get the full bundle of MSI branded software with the board, including MSI's live update service which will keep the board's software, firmware, and drivers up-to-date. We're not huge fans of MSIs bundled over-clocking software though, which tends to be a pain to use, crash-prone, and likely to cause you multiple system freezes. We favour using the BIOS directly.

The motherboard specs in full (for more visit here):

Chipset

• Intel? P35 Chipset Supports Intel Core 2 Quad/Core 2 Duo based processors. Supports Intel? Yorkfield, Wolfdale in the LGA775 package. Supports FSB 800/1066/1333MHz. Supports dual channel, DDR3 800/1066. Intel? ICH9R Chipset

Memory Support

• Supports four unbuffered DIMM of 1.5 Volt DDR3 SDRAM Supports up to 8GB memory size. Supports dual channel DDR3 memory architecture. Supports DDR3 800/1066 memory interface.

Slots

• Two PCI Express x16 slots with 1x16 and 1x4 operations (PCI Express Bus SPEC V1.0a compliant; supports CrossFire Technology) Two PCI Express x1 slots. (support PCI Express Bus specification v1.0a compliant) Two 32-bit v2.3 master PCI bus slots.

On-Board IDE/SATA

• One Ultra DMA 66/100/133 IDE controller integrated in Marvell? 88SE6111. SATAII controller integrated in ICH9R and Marvell? 88SE6111 chipest Up to 300MB/sec transfer speed. Supports four SATAII ports and two eSATA ports by ICH9R.

Audio

• Chip integrated by Realtek? ALC888T Flexible 8-channel audio with jack sensing

LAN and important I/O

• Supports PCI Express LAN 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet by Realtek 8111B. 1 x Floppy disk drive connector 5 x Serial ATAII connectors 1 x ATA133 connector 1 x IEEE1394 connector support additional 1 port 2 x eSATA ports (please refer to Intel website for eSATA function) 1 x 6 in 1 audio jack 6 x USB 2.0 ports 1 x IEEE1394 port 1 x Optical SPDIF-out
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  In Short
  A fantastic and feature-rich motherboard. We can't help but think the X-Fi audio could be integrated, as could the VOIP device, and that these seem like after-thoughts, but maybe this could be implemented in the board's next revision.

Still, we liked it enough to continue to use it as one of our base 775-pin Intel review boards, and it will feature within a variety of up-coming reviews.

The Good
Integrated VOIP, for use with your standard telephone head-set.
X-Fi audio.
Passively cooled motherboard.

The Bad
Two lots of audio may lead to confusion.
No DDR2 support.

The Ugly
The X-Fi riser takes a PCI-E 1x slot (though not much uses these slots yet).

Bartender's Report

?

See also
MSI DAAMIT 2600Pro and 2400Pro tested
DAAMIT seeds ninja 2900 rig
Radeon 2400 and 2600 benched
1GB HD2900XTs arrive