Note of warning on MSI K8N Diamond SLI

[The Steve]

Hi,

Just a note of warning on the K8N diamond SLI.

I have one of these, and it clocks pretty well (upto 260FSB without too much fiddling with the settings yet. Generally the board performs pretty well, and has a great feature set. In theory...

First big problem with the board is that it requires a broken spec PSU. That's right, it will not function correctly with a PSU that meets ATX2 spec. It requires a -5V line which is missing from the ATX2 specification - Reportedly the way to get it wo work is to use a PSU which supports ATX1 & ATX2 (ie. a PSU with a split20/24 pin connection. Mine doesn't have one of these.

Side effect of not having the -5V line on the PSU: The onboard Creative 24bit audio does not function.

Okay, so that's one of the supposed benefits of this board over the competition that many people will not be able to use. Never mind, it still has onboard bluetooth and wireless LAN right?

Er. no. Well that is it does if you buy it in certain areas (UK/Europe not being one of them apparently). The card and external arial for these is listed as optional, and isn't provided in all packages. It's also apparently not available as an aftermarket accesory either.

So if you're not careful when buying one of these boards, you could end up with none of the supposed advantages of the MSI, but still costing the higher price. (Guess who wasn't careful -lol)

Before anyone buys one of these, I suggest looking at the diamond club forums
( http://diamondclub.msi.com.tw/...forumdisplay.php?fid=4 )
to check the problems and see whether you'll suffer from them.

The -5V issue should be easy to check on your current or intended PSU, and I suppose checking full package details with your supplier will deal with the LAn issue.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great board, it's just that it does have potentially serious problems that people need to be aware of, and you need to check you're actually going to be able to use all the features you're paying for, before you buy.

Cheers,
Steve

 

[FastEddie]

I've been following this over at the diamond club forum for the past couple of days. MSI really goofed on this one by using an ATX power standard that no longer exists to power their onboard sound. For those how haven't been following this---your power supply must have the -5v pin in the board connector to have fully functioning sound.

The second issue is a completely different matter. The Diamond version of the board won't be marketed in the U.S.A., so we won't even get any of those Diamond Club Perks to begin with. However, it appears MSI is charging a very high premium for the Diamond version of the board as opposed to the Platinum SLI version, where the Diamond version has always been marketed with bluetooth and WiFi. It appears that MSI is not including these items with the Diamond! So the buyers are paying that much higher premium for the Diamond Club card alone, (yes, a piece of plastic) which allows entrance into the very exclusive Diamond Club (forum).

MSI needs to take their collective heads out of their collective a$$'s and fix both of these matters. The first involves very poor engineering in using a defunct atx standard that can't possibly be met unles you use a psu with a hybrid 24-pin ESP connector. The second involves just plain greed!

 

[The Steve]

Hmm, agreed.

If I understand you, the platinum SLI and diamond SLI are actually the same board?

I thought possibly the platinum SLI was using the non-SLI chipset, but engineered to run as SLI (like the soon to be released DFI boards). I may be very wrong on that one.
If it is the non SLI chipset, I understand there may be a small performance hit by running it in SLI. Shrug.

Either way, I think this board's heading for RMA as soon as I can find a UK supplier stocking a reasonable replacement (SLI boards are like chicken dentists in the UK).

The voltage issue doesn't strike me as something they can fix with a bios update, and hardware fixes would be too expensive I guess. Presumably v1.1 ofthe board will have this ironed out...

Cheers,
Steve

 

[FastEddie]

Originally posted by: The Steve
Hmm, agreed.

If I understand you, the platinum SLI and diamond SLI are actually the same board?

I thought possibly the platinum SLI was using the non-SLI chipset, but engineered to run as SLI (like the soon to be released DFI boards). I may be very wrong on that one.
If it is the non SLI chipset, I understand there may be a small performance hit by running it in SLI. Shrug.

Either way, I think this board's heading for RMA as soon as I can find a UK supplier stocking a reasonable replacement (SLI boards are like chicken dentists in the UK).

The voltage issue doesn't strike me as something they can fix with a bios update, and hardware fixes would be too expensive I guess. Presumably v1.1 ofthe board will have this ironed out...

Cheers,
Steve

They are identical in every aspect. The only difference is the marketing, and what's supossed to be included in the Diamond package, i.e., bluetooth & WiFi, and Diamond Club Card.

The voltage issue is easily corrected with the purchase of various psu's. I'm using a 24-pin psu that will work, only because it is a hybrid 20-pin + 4-pin = 24-pin connector---> Note the Connector

 

[The Steve]

Originally posted by: FastEddie
They are identical in every aspect. The only difference is the marketing, and what's supossed to be included in the Diamond package, i.e., bluetooth & WiFi, and Diamond Club Card.

The voltage issue is easily corrected with the purchase of various psu's. I'm using a 24-pin psu that will work, only because it is a hybrid 20-pin + 4-pin = 24-pin connector---> Note the Connector

Yeah, the trouble I have is that I just bought an enermax 600 specifically for the new rig...
It just has a stright 24pin connector, as it's not compatible with ATX1 (hence no -5V)

I've just got to figure out whether it's best to try to return the PSU and swap for another model that works ATX1&2 (The OCZ powerstream 600 *looks* like it does - I'll need to check reviews about it's SLI performance), or to return the board and go for an ASUS or something.

I'm not particularly happy about the missing wireless stuff I paid for either, but availability is an issue here.

If the only difference in the boards is the marketing, the diamond club forums, and the supposed wireless stuff, it does seem to be *very bad form* (Hey, I'm English so I'm allowed to say things like that ) for them to remove the only tangible benefit of the "Diamond" version either based on certain packages, or certain regions. It's not like we can tell beforehand what's in the box, especially if bought online - this shouldn't even be an issue. AFAIK, the "Platinum" version of the board is not available in the UK/Europe.

Possibly the Diamond club forum will get an answer about sending people the missing equipment, but Im not holding my breath.

Cheers,
Steve

 

[Ackbar]

Good post! I'm glad I didn't wait for this board!

 

[century child]

MSI is notorious for doing this. For many of the boards they release, they have about 20 different configurations and it is very easy to buy a board and not get what you expected. There are 2 versions of the Diamond boards available here in Germany, there's the normal Diamond (no bluetooth or WiFi) and the Diamond 54G with all the extras and a higher prices naturally.

 

[The Steve]

The board I wanted was the DFI lanparty SLI (mainly i must admit due to the OC rep of the UT 250GB NForce3 754 board they made). I couldn't wait until June or whenever they think they might have a board shipping. Anyway I'm sure they all have their issues

 

[FastEddie]

Originally posted by: century child
MSI is notorious for doing this. For many of the boards they release, they have about 20 different configurations and it is very easy to buy a board and not get what you expected. There are 2 versions of the Diamond boards available here in Germany, there's the normal Diamond (no bluetooth or WiFi) and the Diamond 54G with all the extras and a higher prices naturally.

The wasn't supossed to be the case. MSI has been hyping the Diamond on the merits of bluetooth and WiFi. The letter in the box even states that these are included with the Diamond purchase. The people that purchased this, that didn't receive the bluetooth and WiFi, still got the letter in the box! Their web site didn't make the change until yesturday, then claiming there were two versions. They have been marketing the one and only Diamond for months, where the inclusions were what set this board in that exclusive category.

I'm taking MSI products competely off of my build lists. This has been a trend with MSI lately, putting the importance of the end user last.

 

[Redstorm]

Originally posted by: FastEddie

They are identical in every aspect. The only difference is the marketing, and what's supossed to be included in the Diamond package, i.e., bluetooth & WiFi, and Diamond Club Card.

The voltage issue is easily corrected with the purchase of various psu's. I'm using a 24-pin psu that will work, only because it is a hybrid 20-pin + 4-pin = 24-pin connector---> Note the Connector

This has confused the hell out of me, so I headed over to MSI's web site to see if I can shed some light on it.

K8N SLI Platinum vs K8N Diamond

Both are using the nForce4 SLI chipset (no Ultra hack here) now for the differences.

No Silicon Image's SATA RAID on the SLI Platinum (4 SATAII vs 6SATAII on Diamond)
Single Gigabit LAN vs Dual Gigabit Lan on the Diamond
Diamond has optional Bluetooth

Those are the differences I can see + Diamond Club membership.

One last thing that also poses a question, both boards are listed with 2 RJ45 LAN jacks so is the SLI Platinum Single or Dual LAN, MSI need to sort thier marketing out as their is still not clarity on what you get with each board.

 

[Redstorm]

From the Diamond Club forum.

As a Premium High end product that MSI introduced, K8N Diamond, our RD had found a solution to make sure the Creative chip can Maxize the features it carries with all power supply.

All new boards shipped after the first release should work with any PS. The first batch will need to be modified to run with all PS's

 

[FastEddie]

I think they are identical in every respect. Both Platinum SLI & Diamond have dual 1gig lan.

Here's the Platinum SLI link from MSI USA, (which is different from the Taiwan Platinum version, Typos?).--> K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI USA

where it lists:
"On-Board IDE/SATA
? An IDE controller on the nVIDIA nForce3 Ultra chipset provides IDE HDD/CD-ROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA133/100/66 operation modes.
- Can connect up to 4 IDE devices
? NV RAID supports 4 SATA II ports (SATA1-4). Transfer rate is up to 300MB/s.
? NV RAID (Software)
- Supports up to 4 SATA plus 2 ATA 133 Hard drives
- RAID 0 or 1, 0+1, JBOD is supported
- RAID function work w/ ATA 133 + SATA H/D or 2 SATA H/D
? Silicon Image's SATARAID supports another 2 SATA II ports. Transfer rate is up to 300MB/s
- RAID 0 or 1 and JBOD groups are supported
- Support up to 2 SATA devices connected to a single controller"

Emphasis added on typos. I'm not really sure anyone is really home at MSI.

 

[imported_slippy]

Their brand of mandarin/English... or Manglish... is very evolved, revolutionary, and incomprehensible all at once. I just wrote my review for the msi 6600gt at pricegrabber, in which I mentioned that their manual was by far the largest, most unprofessional disgrace I have ever seen in my life. Check out the manual for it at msi. The actual pdf on their website still has 40 or so pages of the same 4 pages recurring over and over. Do these people just not give a crap or what?

Or are they hiring people whose first language isn't english or chinese? Maybe they outsourced their product literature to Packistan or something. Yeesh. Msi is off my consider buying list. As many problems as the asus a8n-sli appears to have with people, at least they know how to put out a coherent manual and honest product specs.

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

If you'll notice the board being sold in the US is called K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI and supports dual-Gigabit LAN and a SI SATA controller. The K8N SLI Platinum on MSI's Global website does not have these features.

 

[razorxx]

I have an 24 pin psu.. that means i must have an -5 right ?

its just the 20 pin psu´s that are missing -5 or what ?

 

[FastEddie]

That's going to depend on which 24-pin psu you have. You can actually look at the power connector and see if a wire is missing. And the psu will note on the power specification label a -5v reading if the psu includes that standard.

 

[flexy]

Originally posted by: razorxx
I have an 24 pin psu.. that means i must have an -5 right ?

its just the 20 pin psu´s that are missing -5 or what ?

no, the new 24pin ATX2.0 dont have -5V anymore.....MSI screwed up big time there.