Recently,
we've looked at MSI's nForce
570 SLI based K9N Platinum motherboard. It was an excellent
performer, and for the majority of folks, provided just about
enough features any consumer would need. Of course, enthusiasts
are a fickle bunch and having just the necessities often isn't
enough.
The
MSI K9N Diamond motherboard we'll be reviewing today is based
on NVIDIA's "enthusiast gamer" minded nForce 590 SLI
for AMD's AM2 CPUs. Along with all of the features missing from
the 570 SLI, such as LinkBoost, SLI-Ready memory support and dual
16x PCI Express pathways, MSI throws in Creative's Sound Blaster
Live! onboard for the audio chores.
The MSI K9N Diamond Motherboard
MSI includes a nicely designed user manual that
covers most of the basics. It doesn't go into great detail in
the BIOS area other than mentioning the function of each BIOS
page, so I guess they leave it up to the tweaker to explore. They
also include a handy quick install leaflet, driver disk and CD.
Several SATA cables are included and they are both the ones with
the 90° bend as well as traditional straight cables. I've
always preferred these 90° connections as they are less likely
to pop off if your case is cramped inside. MSI also includes rounded
floppy and IDE cables in case you need them. A couple of rear
brackets are included for extra USB and FireWire connections.
The D-Bracket has both USB and LED diagnostic lights, which can
be very useful if you're experience system issues.
MSI includes a SLI bridge as well as a PCI support
bracket to help keep the bridge in place. For users on the move,
this will prevent the bridge from shaking loose during transport.
There is also a custom rear IO shield as standard shields that
normally come included with PC cases will not fit.
Considering the number of features, the layout of the K9N Diamond isn't bad. As with the Platinum version of the K9N series,
the Diamond features a black PCB. The CPU area is pretty clear
of obstructions, and we managed to fit the gigantic Zalman AM2
CNPS9500 without any problems. We did not experience issues with
the Zalman since the flat area faces the memory slots, but if
your cooler flares towards the memory, it may be possible that
you will lose the use of the DIMM slot(s) closest to the CPU socket.
We don't have much of an inventory of AM2 performance coolers,
but as long as the cooler follows AMD's specifications, you should
be good to go.
Between the CPU socket and the rear IO are a series of capacitors
and MOSFETs. Unlike some of MSI's past motherboards, they chose
not to attach any heatsinks to this area. This is a bit surprising
on their part, as the area did get fairly warm during testing.
To the right is a four pin CPU fan header and to the left is the
PWR3 connection which is used to supply additional power to the
CPU. The Molex connection (PWR2) is used to provide additional
power to the upper range of video cards and SLI.
Both the North and South bridge of the K9N Diamond are cooled
with a heatpipe/active cooler. The fan itself is barely audible
and noise should be a non-issue for the majority of folks.
The memory banks are coloured coded and the K9N Diamond officially supports DDR2-800 and lower. For dual channel,
you will have to used match memory pairs in each channel bank
(ex: DIMM 1+3 or DIMM 2+4).
While NVIDIA does spin the 590 SLI as having an
enthusiast BIOS, MSI doesn't just stop there. Right next to the
memory connections is the new Dual
CoreCell chip. As before, this chip allows for a number of
performance options that is custom to MSI.
Just below the memory slots is the PWR1 24-pin ATX
power connection. You can use a 20-pin PSU, but for any high-end
system, we would recommend against it. Just below the power connection
is the IDE1 connection for legacy storage. Next to that is the
floppy connection for the last 3 people on the planet who still
uses these devices.
Six SATA connections are grouped together near the
edge of the motherboard between the two PCI Express graphics slots.
The great thing about this location is that it should minimize
any issues one may have with cables interfering with long PCIE
cards. The MSI K9N Diamond supports SATA-II, and with NVRAID,
RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 and JBOD are all supported. These connections
are SATA 3Gb/s compatible and backwards compatible with the older
1.5Gb/s spec.
In the event an overclocking adventure goes awry,
the CMOS battery isn't in the most convenient of locations should
you be using a long PCI Express card in PCI Express graphics slot
#2. Right next to all of the SATA slots is a CMOS reset button
which is in a better spot should you need to depress it.
Moving on to the peripheral slots, we can see the
two PCI Express graphics (PEG) slots sandwiching two PCIE connections.
The added space (two slots between the PEG slots) will allow for
specialized cooling for SLI setups. Of course, you'll likely lose
the use of the adjacent PCI and PCIE slots, but this will not
be the case if you stick with single slot cooling. Next to the
second PEG slot are two PCI slots for additional expansion.
Of all the recent 5xx series of nForce boards, the
590 SLI is the only model that offers dual x16. PEG #1 is a full
x16 when used in single card mode.
Rounding things out are the external inputs and
outputs. From left to right we have; two PS/2 ports, parallel,
FireWire and serial connections, two Gigabit LAN, four USB and
the 7.1 sound connections. While AC'97 may be just "good
enough" for some, the MSI K9N Diamond comes with the
Creative audio controller MSI has been adding in some of their
recent premium boards.
The BIOS
Typically we're used to seeing the AWARD BIOS with
MSI boards, but this particular one uses the just as popular AMI
BIOS. Like most enthusiast boards, there are a large number of
options for those who like to get their hands dirty in the BIOS.
We'll skip directly to those areas since we figure most of you
know how to fiddle with items like system time and boot order.
In the Advanced Chipset page, there are two options
for Hyper Transport configuration. User configurable options for
HT settings for the South Bridge to CPU are Enabled and Disabled.
The HT MCP55 configuration has an option called MCP55 (SB) to
C51 (NB) Frequency, where it starts at 200MHz and maxes out at
1000MHz.
The Cell Menu page is the central hub for the important
system tweaks that are key in setting up a finely tuned box.
By default, AMD's Cool 'n' Quiet is disabled, which is where
we suggest you leave it if the K9N Diamond is to be a workhorse
PC or gaming rig. This feature lowers the power consumption and
enables a quieter-running system when the CPU is less busy. The
performance-on-demand feature of the technology basically allows
the CPU to wake up into a more active state as the need arises.
According to MSI, if you choose to use Cool 'n' Quiet, you must
have memory occupying DIMM 1 for stability reasons.
The CPU Frequency default is 200.0 and has increment options
of 0.5MHz. If you're uncomfortable, or impatient, you can forego
the manual process and choose the CPU Dynamic Overclocking option.
This is disabled by default, but you have six options ranging
from 1% to 15%. This mode only kicks in when the CPU is under
load. While it's idle, the CPU will run at its default speed but
once you start any CPU intensive application, the motherboard
will dynamically overclock based on the settings chosen.
The CPU Frequency Configuration (not to be confused
with CPU Frequency) allows the user to enter a sub-menu and make
adjustments to the CPU's ratio and voltage. The majority of CPUs
are locked, except for FX chips, so this section may not be terribly
useful if you're an owner of one of a non-FX AM2. That said, the
options are there for the user to change.
The next section of the Cell Menu focusses on the memory. In
order to make any user tweaks to the memory, you will need to
set the Memclock Mode to Manual.
You'll be able to make adjustments to the memory's frequency,
which is especially handy if you have memory modules that are
tolerant to overclocking. In the Memory Configuration page, you
can make further adjustments to the memory's latencies (provided
this is set to Manual).
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