MSI K9N Diamond Motherboard Review

MSI K9N Diamond is the most high-end socket AM2 motherboard from MSI and competes directly with ASUS M2N32-SLI De Luxe and Gigabyte GA-M59SLI-S5. Even though all these three boards provide the same basic features provided by nForce 590 SLI – like two x16 PCI Express slots, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, six SATA-300 ports and 7.1 audio – and Firewire ports, there is an important difference between them.

The biggest advantage of MSI K9N Diamond over its competitors is its on-board audio, provided by an on-board Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy SE sound card. If you want a socket AM2 motherboard with high-end audio quality, MSI K9N Diamond is the way to go.

As for performance, it is always good to keep in mind that MSI K9N Diamond was faster than the other socket AM2 motherboards we reviewed so far, probably due to nVidia’s dynamic overclocking feature, called “LinkBoost technology”, which was disabled on the other boards.

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