News MSI's P6N Diamond with X-Fi pixellated

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/03/17/msi_p6n_diamond_with_x-fi_pixellated/

 

Any idea on release price? I would have liked to see a 16x 16x 4x and 4x option as well, instead of rendering one slot inoperative when in SLI mode.
Nice board though. And with the X-Fi on board, the PCI slots are less needed.

 

And it's not Vista ready! How surprising.

 

SLI, triple monitors and Areca SATA RAID... Is niiiice!

 

Hardware RAID is nice.

 

That it is, shame its only for two ports.

 

True, it's a good start though.

I suppose they assume most enthusiasts will only be running RAID 0 over two drives anyway...

 

You could lob an Areca 24 port SATA RAID 8x PCI-E into one of the 16x slots

 

Hmm, what X-Fi version?

whether anyone will shell out for it at the (presumed) premium will depend on what flavor of X-Fi is on it.

they also should have included a header for the X-Fi 5.25" bay, which is where most of the I/O options reside.

Is there X-RAM on board? with more games supporting that now it would makes sense seeing as this is aimed at gamers.

other than that the inclusion of hardware RAID and configurable PCI-E slots makes this ideal for a home media server (in 8x8x16x8 just put in an HDMI 8600 and a couple hardware RAID cards )

also it removes the problem of choosing between a TV tuner and a soundcard

Good Going MSI!!!

 

x16-x8-x16, the last slot should be configuarble to x1 when in the "SLI" mode
@Bluephoenix iirc its the extreme music edition so that would be a no to the x-ram

 

I agree, after looking at the specs of the 680i it should have no trouble having a 16-8-16-1 setup as there would still be 5 PCI-E lanes free for communication betweeen the MCP and SPP.

 

lol i hate companys that do slight corner cuts

 

Tom's Hardware got there hands on a preproduction model of the board, and it seems to be pretty interesting, letting you run two sets of SLI at once! The idea of on-board sound as quality as X-Fi is sweet. If the board can overclock well it would make a great gaming pc, and 4 PCI-E is a pretty interesting feature, quad-sli 8800s anyone?

 

how could quad sli work when each card only has a connector to be connected to one other card and furthmore the heat, noise and power consumtion wouldnt be worth the price for such little bennifet

 

Just a quick note after speaking to some other manufacturers:

The 680i is an expensive chipset.

The X-Fi chip is around $40 on its own in this version.

Hardware RAID is a premium product not included in the economies of scale savings other major components are subject to.

Bottom line: A VERY Expensive motherboard, or one MSI will have very little margin on.

 

Should be pretty awesome though, hardware RAID is a welcome inclusion, and the X-Fi idea is fantastic.

Fingers crossed it might be worth paying for one of these mobos, even at £250-300

 

it's on Froogle ~£220 so if that price is correct make up your own mind.
When it will actually appear in stock is another thing ...

 

Well the cheapest X-Fi card is around £50 and a 2 port Raid controller would be £40, so I guess £200-£230 isn't actually that expensive...

 

I'm setting mine up now, and it may not be full Vista capable, but it wouldn't be MSI's fault-ALchemy may not support the onboard, at the behest of Creative, forcing me to use my already existing X-Fi...