We recently took a look at MSI’s non-SLI nForce4 board (the Platinum Edition) and were quite impressed by it. We ended the article saying that we’re very much looking forward to the Diamond Edition of this board with SLI capabilities and that’s exactly what we have with us today. Diamonds are traditionally a girls best friend but this MSI board is surely a boy’s toy. Lets play.

Packaging

The packaging is like almost all other new MSI boards. The laminated black is beautiful at and will surely attract attention on a store shelf.  The front side flips open to reveal the features and specifications of the motherboard.

Inside, you find almost everything you need to get the system up and running including Rounded IDE and SATA cables (SATA power connectors are also included), user manuals and a drivers CD. Like some other MSI boards, the Diamond features an MSI “Communication Slot” which is basically an orange colored PCI slot and inside the Diamond’s packaging, you’ll find the PCI card that supports both Bluetooth and WiFi forms of connectivity that makes use of the Communication slot.

Layout

The layout of the Diamond Edition resembles that of the Platinum Edition which is no surprise as both these boards are based on the nForce4 chipset. MSI uses the same MOSFETS as the Platinum which we found to be quite impressive, however, you now have a heatsink slapped on top of them to keep them cooler. The Mass Production version of this board might even have a fan on these heatsinks as per our discussion with an MSI rep.

The CPU area has some reasonable room around it and we had no problems installing a ThermalTake heatsink. To the right, you have four memory sockets that accept standard DDR memory modules and work in dual channel mode, if used in the right configuration. MSI also places the power and floppy/IDE connectors here which we feel is a good place for them. The main power connector is the bigger type used on the Intel 925 chipset boards but works with the older, standard connector that most of us use. The four pin connector is also conveniently placed on the top of the board above the CPU socket which makes a more tidy system.

Of course, the most notable thing on the board is the presence of two PCI Express slots that can take two high-end Video cards and work in an SLI mode. Between them is the slot that takes a small card and tells the board to work in an SLI or non-SLI mode. We didn’t really like MSI’s implementation of a small clip in the center that holds the SLI card down- it comes off quite easily.

The bottom edge of the board features all the onboard headers for USB (six ports) and Firewire (two ports) along with two Serial ATA ports powered by the onboard Silicon Image controller as well as front audio connections for your casing. The four SATA ports powered by nVidia are located on the right edge of the board for easy access. Lastly, MSI places the clearing CMOS jumper and battery right between the IDE and SATA connectors making it extremely easy to get to.