nVidia certainly chose the right path by re-introducing SLI in a PCI-E platform with their nForce4 chipset. We say this because it seems as though other chipset manufacturers are going to be jumping on the “multi video cards” bandwagon soon. However, nVidia was the first with it on the AMD platform and they’re first with it on the Intel platform as well as we look at the P4N Diamond from SLI. If you remember correctly, MSI was also the first one to send us their AMD based SLI board.

Packaging

The P4N Diamond comes in a shiny black box almost identical to the AMD version. The front side flips open to reveal some of the features supported by the board as well as some of MSI’s proprietary features. The back of the board has an actual board shot and lists all the cables and headers included.

Inside the package, you find most of the things that are included with MSI boards such as rounded IDE cables and plenty of SATA cables. MSI also includes backplates for USB, Firewire , DLED as well as one SATA port, however, unlike the one we see with ASUS boards, there’s no power connector included in the SATA backplate and you will have to find an alternative way of powering your drive

Layout

MSI does a reasonable job with the layout of the P4N Diamond however, it could’ve been better. Starting off, the Northbridge sits very close to the CPU socket and as you can see from the picture, fitting anything larger than the stock HSF unit might be a problem. The Northbridge is actively cooled and this is needed as it got real hot during our tests. Even the Southbridge got very hot and you can see that MSI has used a copper core in the center to help things.

The memory sockets as well as the floppy and IDE connectors are present next to the CPU- where we like them. The main power connecter is also present here while MSI places the four-pin connector between the back panel and CPU socket and on the top of the board which allows you to reduce cable clutter. The board comes with two PCI-E x 16 slots, one PCI-E x1 slot and two standard PCI slots. This is the first nForce4 board we’ve received that has no card between the PCI x16 slots that you need to flip to enable/disable SLI and this is a very good thing.

MSI places six SATA connectors in a row which certainly looks cool but will probably create a jungle of cables if you plan on using all the connectors. Right above these connectors MSI places their clearing CMOS button and instead of switching jumper position to clear the CMOS, you simply press that button- certainly very convenient for us but not for the small group of people that wire the clearing CMOS jumper to the front or back of their system so they can clear the CMOS even with the case closed.