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MSI introduces their next-in-line "flagship"  motherboard ... DDR3, X38, quad PCIe and with all the extras ... it's certainly very attractive

INTRODUCTION

The end of the year has given us lots of new products using new technologies. It's the mad rush before the festive season, and it was only a couple of months ago when MSI released their P35 Diamond motherboard. It featured the Intel P35 chipset and supported DDR3 ram as well as 1600FSB. We found it to be a very good motherboard and gave it our CPU3D Enthusiast Award. But now with the Intel's latest X38 chipset on the loose ... MSI have decided to released their next-in-line "flagship" motherboard ... X38 Diamond.

The Diamond range of motherboards are MSI's equivalent of what you might call "Premium" or so-called "Deluxe" products. They are aimed at the high-end and enthusiast market, and will be feature-packed with all the bells and whistles. So, it's not surprising to see MSI going all out, to try and capture this lucrative market.

         

The main difference between the MSI X38 Diamond and its predecessor is the chipset it uses. Utilising Intel's latest X38 chipset, it not only supports DDR3 ram and 1600FSB but also it's 45nm-Ready for Penryn (Yorkfield core) processors. This motherboard also contain extra features such as 4 PCIe slots for expansion, diagnostic LED POST, Skytel/Skype modem card, Circu-pipe chipset cooling, Creative's X-Fi extreme audio card and MSI's Dual Core Cell. It's absoultely feature-packed to say the least.

What I find interesting with the X38 Diamond is the dianostic LED POST and Skytel/Skype modem card. The diagnostic LED POST is gives users easy to read diagnostic messages, while the Skytel/Skype modem card can be used to Skype applications.

We will be testing the MSI X38 Diamond motherboard with our older Q6600 prcessor (B3 stepping). Although it might not clock as high ... it should easily reach 3.2Ghz @ 400FSB. That's good enough for our overclocking tests. We will also be using 2Gb Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1600 PC3-12800 and a Geforce 8800GTS graphics card.

We're expecting similar results from the MSI X38 Diamond with other X38 based motherboards. What will make this motherboard different is the extras that MSI have included. So far, it's very attractive.

Let's take a closer look at the specifications.