Th P7N Diamond is a ATX motherboard for Intel processors from MSI. The P7N Diamond features two video card expansions slots for increasing the system's graphics capabilities. The motherboard also includes a Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme H/W audio card. The motherboard's desktop management software and BIOS add more ways for you to customize, monitor and control the motherboard.
Processor
The P7N Diamond features a 775 CPU socket. It supports many Intel Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium 4, Pentium 4 EE, Pentium D or Pentium XE processors that are designed for socket 775 motherboards. The board can handle front side bus speeds of 1,333, 1,066, 800 or 533 megahertz. The board also supports processors with Intel's Hyper-Threading technology.
RAM
The motherboard has four DDR2 RAM slots. Each slot accepts up to 2GB of RAM for a maximum total of 8GB. The motherboard uses 240-pain DIMM RAM that operates at 1.8 volts. It supports RAM at 533, 668, 800 or 1,066 MHz.
Expansion Slots
The P7N has several expansion slots for adding functionality to the motherboard. It has four PCIe x16 slots, two of which can be used for graphics card expansions. The motherboard can use ATI or NVIDIA graphics cards but it can only support two graphics cards together if they are both compatible SLI-ready NVIDIA graphics cards. The motherboard includes two PCIe x1 slots, but one of the slots is occupied by the audio card. There is also one 32-bit v2.3 Master PCI slot.
External Connections
The motherboard has two PS/2 ports for a mouse and a keyboard connection. Two eSATA ports provide high-speed external hard drive connections. Two Ethernet ports and one IEEE 1394 port allow for a variety of networking options. The motherboard has six rear USB 2.0 ports for connecting to external devices. The motherboard has a special button on the back panel that resets the system's CMOS settings. This restores the motherboard and its settings to their factory state without opening the case. The audio card has five audio ports for 7.1 surround sound, line-in and microphone-in. The card also has one optical SPDIF audio connection.
Internal Connections
Six internal SATA connectors allow for up to six internal hard drives or optical discs. A front panel audio connector and two front panel USB 2.0 connectors support cases with front panel input. A single floppy disk drive connector and a serial port connector support legacy devices. The motherboard can power and control up to four internal fans.
Features
MSI's Desktop Management Interface allows you to monitor and control your motherboard without entering BIOS settings. The interface records BIOS settings on the computer's hard drive. If the settings are reset, the interface can restore them. You can also modify settings through the interface to fix whatever issue may have caused you to reset the BIOS before restoring the settings.
Tags: audio card, front panel, graphics cards, Pentium Pentium, BIOS settings, card expansions, devices motherboard