Reviews for MSI K8N Diamond Plus Desktop Motherboard - nVIDIA nForce4 SLI x16 SPPC51D Chipset - Socket PGA-939

K8N Diamond Plus

Strengths: The strenghts of this board are the layout, the value of the on-board Sound Blaster sound card, included round cables, and 6 SATA II headers.

Weakness: The heatpipe makes things cramped by the first video card slot. The manual isn't much help. Only 2 legacy PCI slots, one of which is dedicated to communications.

This is a great board for the money. It's cheaper than the ASUS comparable board and adds the value of integrated Sound Blaster and rounded cables. The heat pipe design is neat but more space consuming than useful as it still uses a fan so you lose the noise saving benefit of the heat pipe concept. It also pipes the heat over near the CPU. Set up was easy, the BIOS are easy to follow and the board overclocks easily.

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cksaint

Strengths: heatsink pipe for B(N&S) sharing one fan

Weakness: remove that big parallel port, replace it with newer stuff no one uses that anymore.

very stable with a dual core 3800 easy to o'clk, runs very strong. Will add a second 7600 gt when the budget is right. Overall great board . I noticed the heatsink fan speed is~5000 rpm and quiet.

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Excellent Board

Strengths: Have MoBo installed now for over 1 Mth., not 1 problem. The 1 thing that made this board stand out was the Creative Labs Audigy hardware. GOOD CHOICE. Bios ran smooth, and have had no issues.

Weakness: The only negative was the manual. Some parts were vague, but support was a big help.

This was my first build, and my biggest decision was the MoBo. I knew was going to use a Socket 939 AMD, but didn't know which one. One month later, I know I spent my $200 wisely. The software that bundled with the board is excellent as well. Just all around good quality.

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Another great MSI board

Strengths: Heatsink with a pipe for the NB and SB, big, accessories. Overclockable.

Weakness: 300Mhz is the limit for overclocking. Location of the SB heatsink.

I like this board a lot, keeping the north bridge and the south bridge nice and cool is a great thing, specially if you will be overclocking. I just don't like where the SB heatsink is located. It can interfere with a large CPU heatsink or a large video card such as the Asus quad card. So to be on the safe side I bought the evga's 256 P2N527AX. With that graphics card there is still enough room to breathe. Also I am using the stock CPU cooler, that came with the Opteron 170 which has heat pipes and they don't come any where near the SB heatsink anything bigger than that maybe a problem, but don't take my word for it.

If you plan on going SLI the second large video card will come right on top of the NB heatsink which blows as I was planning on installing another fan on that heatsink. But I guess I will survive. Speaking if SLI its true 16X unlike other boards who don’t even have that. So far only Asus, DFI and this MSI board are true 16X SLI.

Another great thing about this board is the built in Creative’s Audigy chip…..sound is equal having a PCI Audigy card. Saved me money there.

One thing to notice is that if you have 4 Double sided memory of 400MHZ it will reduce it to 333Mhz. I know lots of people where upset about it. I hope they have a bios update which will change that. As of 03/01/2006 there is no new Bios update for this board.

You can overclock your heart out on this baby, but only up to 300Mhz, other boards such as DFI and Asus gaming boards will let you go higher but since I wasn’t planning on overclocking that much it didn’t matter to me.

One guy mentioned that one PCI slot the orange one is dedicated to communication slot, which is true but it can be used for any other PCI cards as well, I tested it out and manual also confirms that. As for the manual, like any other manual its limited so don’t expect much. You are better off finding information on the MSI forums.

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MSI diamond plus

Strengths: Heatsink/pipe, Overclockable, SATA 1 and 2, Creative sound.

Weakness: Heatsink location, 2nd PCI-E slot too close to PCI.

Well the reason I gave it a 3 instead of a 5 is because the first board I received was a DOA. Which really blows, and paying to return is another scam I hate. So I ordered another one and dispute the first one.

Anyways, the 2nd board which runs perfectly is great. I overclocked my Opteron 170 to 2.7 on stock and it runs great.

Even with the heatsink/pipe on this board for the NB and SB I think they get hot 43 idle 50 on a full load.
You can manually overclock the memory as well but that will void your warranty.

MSI manual is useless, you are better off finding information from the MSI forums, another cool thing about the MSI website is that if you write you to them with a specific problem (when they get back to you) they can sometimes write a special bios just for your system configuration.

As another member mentioned here I don't like where they put the heatsink either its too close to the PCI-E slot and plus if you want to buy those big heatsinks for the CPU it might be a problem. You are better off taking it out all together and putting your own heatsinks.

2nd PCI-E slot and one PCI slot can use a little distance between them. It was this board or the ASus32bit on the Asus both PCI slots become useless if you go with Sli.
At least here you have one left.

Creative sound card is great, EAX sound if perfect...with my 6.1 speaker system.

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Nice Board!!!

Strengths: Good layout, Creative Sound Blaster Live, Lots of expansion ports

Weakness: Not as overlookable as the ASUS or DFI SLI x16 boards.

One MSI’s best boards ever! I bought and ASUS board previously and decided to switch because I wasn't happy with the layout of there socket 939 x 16 board. The MSI K8N Diamond Plus comes with an abundant of features that weren’t found on any other board. I think this was good choice although I’ve never owned a MSI board.

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MSI is starting the new year off with a bang. Its newest Socket 939 board sports a lavish feature set, complete with a high-end on-board sound solution. But how good really is the performance of MSI's K8N Diamond Plus HiFi-Edition?

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