nie aku upkn lg pic n penerngn dier...
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
X-FI Xtreme Audio The X-Fi Extreme
Audio is the cheapest of the X-Fi and misses out on a lot of the
features of it's bigger and more expensive brothers. However, it's an
X-Fi nonetheless so comes with the X-Fi control panel, giving you
access to the Crystalizer and CMSS-3D surround upmixing. Unfortunately
it only allows you to use EAX 4.0 as apposed to the latest 5.0 HD which
will mean the latest games won't sound quite as real as the Extreme
Gamer or the Fatal1ty edition.
One advantage of the
Extreme Audio though, is the fact that it's PCI-e and can slot into
anything from a 1x port to a 16x port. This makes it much easier to
find a place for an add-on audio card in the ever dwindling world of
PCI support. It's sound quality should also be superior to the onboard
Realtek solution.
The board features 4 PCI-E slots which are colour coded blue and yellow
to separate the first and second slots from the 3rd and 4th. Due to the
spacing between the first couple of slots it seems obvious that MSI
envisaged them being used a lot more (or at least used by larger cards)
than the 3rd and 4th
Between the 3rd and 4th PCI-e 16x slots is the name of the board, etched in an odd, hand written style.
In the final version of this board, MSI have dropped the DDR2 support
and simply provided 4x DIMM slots for DDR3 modules. Unfortunately the
colour scheme for the slots isn't quite as good looking as the PCI-e
slots shown above. Instead of the rich blue and yellow, they are in a
pastel blue and pink; oh dear.
The CPU socket is surrounded on all but one side by capacitors and coolers for the PWM area and Northbridge chip.
ust north of this is the CPU 8pin socket. The board comes with a piece
of plastic filling 4 of the 8 slots so that those with 4pin PSUs are in
no doubt as to where to stick it. Those with the 8pin connector can
simply remove the clip and slot in the cable.
One nice addition to the board come in the shape of the "Dual Core
Cell" chip found near the bottom of the board. This allows for
automatic overclocking (if you like that sort of thing) under load
while monitoring CPU cores individually.
Another is the LED post display. As you boot up it displays exactly
what is going on at that time, be it CPU frequency check, memory
frequency check or SATA device detection. This little thing is
incredibly useful for overclockers as if an OC is unstable during post,
they can see exactly where it failed.
Also, down by the Dual Core Cell chip are a couple of buttons which are
a life saver for reviewers. They are simply on/off and reset buttons,
but damn is it useful to not have to mess around with case power-button
cabling.
Not only that but on the back of the board, with the 8
USB 2.0 ports, the 2x eSATA ports, 2x Cat.5 connectors, onboard sound
and PS2 ports is a CMOS clear button. This is another great idea as it
stops people having to open their case to reset it. However, its
positioning, although useful, is a little worrying as it's quite common
for me to reach behind my case and plug in or pull cables just by feel.
I doubt it would take me long to accidentally clear my CMOS, which
might only be a minor annoyance to some, but if you have heavily
customized the BIOS settings, this could be very frustrating.
NB. The button is located between the eSATA ports and the 4 huddled USB sockets.
Located at the rear of the board is the realtek onboard sound chip
(though it's unlikely this will ever be used thanks to the included
PCI-e X-FI Extreme Audio card)
Fintek also plays a part in this board, supplying the
Super I/O Chip which is a controller for all the old school technology
onboard.
Back at the bottom by the handy switches, are the usual front panel USB and Audio connectors.
Next to these is a single floppy drive connector.
Moving
up the board a little, we have the SATA ports. There are 4 slots in a
pastel purple colour, and two others in red and black and red which
deal with RAID Next to this is the yellow IDE connector; this seems
aged now, but many still use IDE CD/DVD drives so including one is
necessary.
Across
the x38 Diamond, solid capacitors are used. These tend to have a longer
operational life than conventional capacitors; and they look good too.
Oddly, also across the board there are several MOSFETs which seem to
have been twisted out of their original placing. They are quite sturdy
so it would seem they were put on that way. It just seems strange
because they have guide lines underneath them which they don't line up
with at all.
Subject: topic MOTHERBOARD 
30/12/2007, 10:40 am
