This paper proposes a novel Network-on-Chip (NoC) architecture that not only enhances network transmission performance while maintaining implementation cost feasible, but also provides a power-efficient solution for interconnection network scenarios. Diagonally-linked mesh (DMesh) NoC that uses wormhole packet switching technique implements a high-performance NoC platform to meet both cost and power consumption requirements. The proposed architecture uses an adaptive quasi-minimal routing algorithm so that DMesh can improve average latency and saturation traffic load owing to its flexibility and adaptiveness. In addition, implementation results show that employing diagonal links is a more area-efficient way for improving network performance than using large buffers. Simulation results also reveal that power consumption in DMesh networks outperforms traditional Mesh networks.