Verdict: Loads of features, but do you really want to pay for them all?

There's a high chance that if you're in the market for an SLI system then you're the type of person who wants it all, no matter what the cost. This is precisely the kind of person that MSI is gunning for with its Diamond range, which spares no expense and is priced accordingly.

Take, for example, the inclusion of an 8-channel Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit audio chip with both optical and coaxial digital connections. This is a step above the usual AC97 or HD Audio codecs found on most motherboards and is undoubtedly part of the reason why the Diamond is more expensive than any other SLI motherboard. On top of this, there are two Gigabit LAN connections, and a combination Bluetooth and 802.11g wireless card with a huge external antenna. As it's based on Nvidia's nForce4 SLI chipset, you also get four S-ATA II ports plus an additional two S-ATA ports, all of which are RAID-capable.

Even the motherboard PCB itself is a bit out of the ordinary, thanks to the strange heatpipe device that cools the VRMs. This is assisted by a 40mm fan, mounted at a 45-degree angle to the motherboard. Strangeness aside, the heatpipe device works well and keeps the VRMs nice and cool, which should help to maintain a stable voltage. With all this extra cooling, you'd think MSI would give you a little more voltage control, but a CPU voltage of only 1.68V is available in the BIOS.

The rest of the BIOS is very familiar territory for us, being almost identical to MSI's other nForce4 motherboards. Familiar is good, and there are plenty of options for tweaking, allowing it to run with a turbocharged FSB of 360MHz. The MSI performed almost identically to every other nForce4 motherboard on test, except the Asus, which is slightly faster in games, possibly because of its slightly overvolted chipset.

At £152.69, the K8N Diamond is expensive, considering that the Asus and Gigabyte boards are more than £40 cheaper and do pretty much the same thing. The Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit audio is nice, but not essential, and the wireless connections, particularly Bluetooth, are equally non-essential. Ultimately, both of these features can be added separately (arguably costing more), so the Diamond is only worth considering if you know that you'll make use of all of the features it offers.

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