BIOS and tweaking software
MSI has done well with the P4N Diamond's features and layout, but what about the BIOS?

It gets off to a good start, serving up control over a number of memory timings, including the DRAM command rate.

Overclocking options are also plentiful, with front-side bus speeds available up to 350MHz and CPU overvolting options as high as 0.4V above stock. Like other nForce4 SLI Intel Edition boards, the P4N Diamond also has a wealth of memory dividers to draw from; so many that rather than choosing a divider from a massive list, users simply key in a target memory clock and the BIOS automatically selects a memory divider that will produce a memory speed as close to the target value as possible.

If old-school overclocking isn't your thing, the P4N Diamond's CoreCell chip also allows for dynamic overclocking based on CPU loads. The CoreCell chip can ramp CPU speeds within one microsecond of a change in CPU load, but dynamic overclocking doesn't appear to work when Intel's SpeedStep and Enhanced C1E halt state are also enabled.

Many motherboard manufacturers now offer dynamic CPU overclocking, but too often the auto-overclocking options are enabled by default and unnecessarily obfuscated. The P4N Diamond's BIOS does dynamic overclocking right. It's disabled by default, and the various overclocking degrees are clearly labeled to avoid confusion.

In addition to CPU overclocking, the P4N Diamond's BIOS also offers limited graphics card overclocking options. Users with NVIDIA NV4x-based graphics cards can use the BIOS to increase core and memory clock speeds by between 1 and 15%. Again, this capability is disabled at default, as it should be.

Like most recent Pentium platforms, the P4N Diamond's BIOS supports temperature-based CPU fan speed control. Users can also set a target temperature and tolerance for the CPU fan, but there's no BIOS-level fan speed control for the system or north bridge fans. The BIOS also lacks user-configurable temperature- and fan failure-based alarm and shutdown conditions.

If you're uncomfortable poking around in the BIOS, NVIDIA's nTune system utility brings some of the P4N Diamond BIOS's functionality to Windows. The board doesn't support nTune's voltage and fan speed control, or its hardware monitoring capabilities, but it does provide access to basic bus tweaking and a handful of memory timings.

Perhaps the P4N Diamond doesn't fully support all of nTune's features because MSI would rather users run its CoreCenter software. CoreCenter allows users to adjust the front-side bus speed and manipulate system voltages, but it doesn't provide access to the CPU multiplier, which is only available through the BIOS. However, CoreCenter does feature temperature- and fan speed-based alarms.