This article is more than 1 year old

MSI K8N Diamond SLI mobo

The gamer's best mobo?

The K8N Diamond was tested with two MSI GeForce 6600GT PCI Express graphics cards, paired with an Athlon 64-FX55 processor.

MSI K8N Diamond SLI mobo

From the benchmarks it's clear that SLI does have an impact on game performance - in the games that are supported, of course. This is the biggest downside with SLI, as it only works with a limited number of titles, listed on Nvidia's website.

MSI K8N Diamond SLI mobo

The performance increase that SLI adds is also very dependant on the game. In Far Cry at 1024 x 768 the result was higher using a single card rather than the SLI setup. With Doom 3 SLI gave an increase of 25fps at the same setting. We have compared all the benchmarks in SLI to those of a single 6600GT card so you can see clearly how much of a performance boost you're getting.

MSI K8N Diamond SLI mobo

With a SYSMark 2004 score of 199 this is a pretty fast board even when you're not using it for playing games and the PCMark 2004 scores back this up.

Verdict

The MSI K8N Diamond doesn't come cheap, but you wouldn't expect it to with such a wide range of excellent features on offer. The MSI K8N Diamond is an impressive product. The top of the range version comes in at £170. If you want to save some cash, MSI also offers a cheaper option without the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card, but we'd definitely go for the feature-packed model.

This is a great motherboard for the gaming enthusiast - just make sure that you have enough cash left over for those graphics cards.

Review by
TrustedReviews.com

MSI K8N Diamond
 
Rating 90%
 
Price £170 inc. VAT
 
More info The MSI site

Recent Reviews

Apple iPod Shuffle
Apple Mac Mini
Aigo P750 20GB MP3 Player
HTC 'Magician' PocketPC phone
Sony PlayStation Portable PSP-1000
Sanyo S750 3G handset
ViewSonic NextVision N3000w 30in LCD HDTV
Mattel Juice Box kids' portable media player

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like