The MSI P35 Diamond performs well but isn't exceptional and the additional extras are a welcome effort but might not appeal to everyone. I constantly found myself writing "disappointed" here and there, which I still am - it just doesn't live up to what we'd expect from a Diamond-series board - especially since I've seen what the X38 Diamond has in potential. At most it's an expensive Platinum and makes the //real P35 Platinum a far better purchase than when we originally reviewed it.

There should have been more effort put into the core bundle since you're buying the best P35 motherboard MSI makes - and while the X-Fi and SkyTel are certainly part of a reflection of this, it's just not all there and doesn't mean you can't buy the same X-Fi card for £25 anyway. Without these two extras you might as well be buying the P35 Platinum with expensive DDR3 slots because the core motherboard is lacking extra features. How about //at least another Gigabit Ethernet or some WiFi? A reorganised SATA port array? I still detest the use of internal SATA for the more infrequently used eSATA, and wish MSI wouldn't //permanently sacrifice ports in this way. Offering an eSATA Matrix RAID 1 array is good, but those who will use this function is low and it only needs at most one eSATA port.

Overall it shouldn't detract that this is still a good board with fantastic stability and great performance, but it still doesn't represent good value for money. If you're //really pinning over DDR3 and to splash out this kind of cash on a motherboard - wait for the X38 Diamond. Or, if you can't wait that long, we'd suggest you save some money and get some fast DDR2, the separate X-Fi card and the P35 Platinum for essentially the same result.