Verdict: A flawed Diamond

The K8N Diamond Plus is billed as a high-end SLI motherboard and as such, it boasts a number of features not normally found on your average nForce4 board.

First of all, MSI has used the new nForce4 SLI X16 chipset, which provides 16 PCI-E lanes to each of the high-speed PCI-E slots. MSI has also added an on-board Sound Blaster Audigy SE sound chip. This is a huge step up in quality and performance from the AC97 audio found on most other nForce4 SLI motherboards, thanks to 24-bit 192KHz sampling, a 106dB signal-to-noise ratio, and EAX Advanced HD support. However, this means that the K8N Diamond Plus costs more than most nForce4 SLI boards, although at £140, it still isn't the most expensive board on test.

The layout of the MSI is good, partly due to the widely spaced 16x PCI-E slots, allowing you more room to fit oversized HSFs or waterblocks to your graphics cards. Also present is one 2x PCI-E slot, and a pair of 1x PCI-E and PCI slots. The layout of the components on the PCB is particularly good, with no conflicts or obstructions.

Continuing the high-end theme, there are four RAID-capable S-ATA II ports and two RAID-capable EIDE channels from the nForce4 SLI chipset, plus a further two RAID-capable S-ATA II ports, courtesy of a Silicon Image controller. Two Gigabit LAN ports are provided, along with ten USB 2 ports and three FireWire ports.

Stupidly, the board's default RAM frequency is 100MHz (200MHz DDR), which cripples the memory bandwidth. Once set to 200MHz at a 1:1 ratio with the FSB, the K8N Diamond Plus is a reasonable performer.

Unfortunately, we hit a brick wall when it came to overclocking. Any attempt to change the CPU voltage or multiplier resulted in the motherboard refusing to POST. We requested a second review sample from MSI, but even with this board and an updated BIOS, we still couldn't resolve the problem. We know the nForce4 SLI X16 chipset will overclock, so clearly MSI has some serious bugs to iron out.

The K8N Diamond Plus has an excellent PCB layout and very high-quality on-board audio, but until MSI can sort out the overclocking issues, it isn't worth considering.

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