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MSI embraces DDR3 with the P35 Diamond motherboard ... enthusiasts will love what it has to offer

INTRODUCTION

Manufacturers are now beginning to release their DDR3 based motherboards. It was only a matter of time, if they didn't, then they'll be left behind. One of the major factors for this migration is that Intel have been really pushing their processors and chipsets. If you're not aware, Intel based motherboards now offer one of the fastest FSB (front side bus) system available. The P35 chipset already support a FSB of 1333Mhz and their next generation chipset - the Intel X38 will offer an even higher FSB of 1600Mhz. With support for such high FSBs, you'll also need high speed ram to match. What better to use DDR3 for both Intel's P35 and X38 chipset.

         

Over the next few months as more and more DDR3 motherboards become available, we will hopefully see the price of DDR3 ram drop. When this happens, the flood gates will open for all types of users, whether it's mainstream, high-end or enthusisast, to really take advantage of DDR3 technology.

In this review we'll be taking a look at the MSI P35 Diamond motherboard. It utilises the Intel P35 chipset and offers support for 1333FSB, Quad core processors and DDR3 ram. The P35 Diamond include several innovative features from MSI, such as the Circu-Pipe silent chipset cooling, D.O.T overclocking feature and MSI's Cell Menu. Other extras include the Creative's X-Fi Extreme PCIe Audio card, eSATA connectors and multi-coloured diagnostic LEDs. The specs certainly looks good and we expect this motherboard to offer something really special.

We've already tested the P35 Platinum motherboard which is their DDR2 version. We found it to be a very capable motherboard and offered one of the best price/perfomance ratio. So, it will be interesting to see what performance difference DDR3 has over DDR2. Something tells me that the P35 Diamond motherboard, with some high-spec DDR3 ram installed could give us quite a surprise.

OK, let's not waste any more time and take a closer look at the MSI P35 Diamond motherboard ...