Introduction
The MSI P35 Diamond, as you would recall from our
review
, was an excellent motherboard because of its performance and great feature bundle. As a follow up, MSI created the X38 Diamond, spinning the same winning formula, but with an updated chipset (Intel X38) and some tweaks. We happened to chance upon a very early sample of the MSI X38 Diamond a couple of months ago, which we've previewed
here
, so our readers should already have a good idea what this board is about. However, with retail boards slowly trickling into the channel, we've finally had the chance to put the X38 Diamond through its paces and see if it can live up to expectations.
Retail version of the MSI X38 Diamond motherboard.
|
MSI X38 Diamond Technical Specifications
| CPU
Support |
- Supports
all 90nm/65nm/45nm Intel LGA775
processors
- Quad-Core ready
|
| Chipset |
- Northbridge:
Intel X38
- Southbridge:
Intel
ICH9R
|
| Memory |
- Supports four
unbuffered DIMM of 1.5 Volt DDR3 SDRAM
- Max 8GB Dual-channel DDR3-1333
|
| Storage |
- Intel ICH9R
Southbridge
- 6 x SATA 3.0Gbps
interface
- Intel Matrix
Storage Technology
- Supports RAID 0,
RAID 1, RAID 0+1, RAID 5, RAID 10
- Marvell 88SE6111
- 1 x Ultra ATA 33/66/100/133 (data transfer rate
up to 133MB/sec.)
- 1 x SATA 3.0Gbps interface (used by SiI5723
controller below)
- Silicon Image SiI5723
- 2 x SATA 3.0Gbps interface
- SATA RAID 0, RAID1 and JBOD
|
| Audio |
- Intel High Definition Audio (Azalia)
- Realtek ALC888T HD Audio CODEC with hardware VoIP
support
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI Express
card
|
| Networking |
- Intel 82566 PCIe Gigabit Ehternet LAN
- Marvell 88E8111B Gigabit Ethernet PHY
|
| IEEE 1394 (FireWire) |
- VIA VT6308P FireWire controller
- 2 x 1394a ports @ 400 Mbps speed
|
| I/O Interface |
- 1
x Floppy connector
- 1 x Ultra ATA
IDE connectors
- 8 x SATA
connectors (6 x internal, 2 x eSATA)
- 12 x USB 2.0
ports (8 x rear, 4 x header)
- 2 x
RJ45 LAN
ports
- 2 x FireWire-400 ports (1 x rear, 1
x header)
- 1 x
Optical S/PDIF
Output
- 8-Channel Audio I/O
ports
- 1
x COM
port header
- 1 x
mini-DIN-6 PS/2
keyboard port
- 1 x
mini-DIN-6 PS/2 mouse port
|
| Expansion
Slots |
- 2 x
PCIe x16
slots,
PCI Express Bus specification v2.0
compliant
- 2 x
PCIe x16
slots,
PCI Express Bus specification v1.1
compliant
- 2 x PCIe x1
slots, PCI
Express Bus specification v1.1
compliant
- 1 x 32-bit
PCI slots,
PCI 2.3 compliant
|
| Special Features |
- MSI Dual Core Cell Center
- MSI Live Update 3
|
| PCB |
- ATX Form Factor, 12"x
9.6"(30.5cm x 24.4cm)
|
Packed rear I/O panel. From left to right: PS/2 keyboard and mouse, 4-port USB 2.0 cluster, FireWire, optical S/PDIF, 2x eSATA, CMOS reset button, 2x RJ-45, 4x USB 2.0 and surround analog audio jacks.
|
Channels
TECH GUIDES
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