Introduction

Recently, XSR and several other sites have posted previews of upcoming x38 motherboards, and the MSI Diamond was no different. Thankfully, we finally have our hands on the finished article and with some brand new testing equipment, hope to put it through it's paces. Let's see how it does.

About MSI

"Established in August 1986, MSI has always upheld the business philosophy "Award-winning product quality and outstanding customer service." MSI is a specialist in the design and manufacture of motherboards, add-on cards, servers/workstations, barebones, communication devices and CE Products and Notebooks. Surmounting a challenging industry, we've raced to the head of the pack and are now ranked within the world's top 3 motherboard manufacturers and one of the top 5 server manufacturers. What's more, MSI graphics card has the most amazing sales performance over the past years, making it to the no. 1 position in the world for four consecutive years. Did you know that one MSI graphics card is sold every 2.8 seconds? So far, there are more than 60 million users worldwide enjoying MSI graphics cards.

The backbone of MSI is its fierce dedication to developing cutting-edge products and technology. Equally important, MSI has integrated a multi-corporate strategy, consumer insights measure and monitoring, and brand strategy/management over the years. The best proof of this success can be proven in year 2005 when MSI Notebook received 4 best performance awards for exports in Taiwan Innovalue in 2005, making MSI the biggest winner among all Taiwan companies. Additionally, four of MSI CE products also received the highest honor Japan G-Mark contest and won the prestigious German iF design contest."

NB. Information taken from MSI's website.

Features

• Intel® X38 Express Chipset Based
  
• Supports Intel Core™ 2 Extreme/Quad/Duo Processors
  
• Supports FSB 1333/1066/800MHz
  
• Supports Dual Ch. DDR3-1333/1066/800
  
• Dual-Channel PWM design
  
• New Circu-Pipe
  
• 4 PCI Express x16 slots ( 2 runs x4 speed)
  
• supports PCIe 2.0 & ATI CrossFire
  
• 2 eSATA2 Support Matrix RAID & Port
  
• Multiplier @ back I/O
  
• Supports 7.1Ch. X-Fi Xtreme Audio
  
• Supports MSI SkyTel VoIP function
  
• Supports dual Gigabit LAN

For a full list of features, visit MSI's website here.