ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Layout and Features

ASUS has been a legend among enthusiasts and mainstream users for many years now. They are known for building solid, fully featured motherboards. Today, ASUS also makes chassis, power supplies, cooling devices, video cards and more. ASUS developed a very solid reputation with their A8N32SLI Deluxe board (Socket 939, nF4 SLI x16 chipset). They continue to live up to that reputation with the AM2 brother on the A8N32, the M2N32-SLI Deluxe.

The layout of this motherboard differs greatly from the Gigabyte motherboard, but it is also very clean and well planned out. Starting out we see the rear panel ports are numerous and varied. There is the standard 8 channel audio, USB 2.0 ports, the dual Ethernet ports, the serial port and PS/2 ports. There is also a Firewire connection. One thing that stands out is the external SATA port, just below the Firewire connection. This is possible but not many motherboards feature such a connection. If you read the review of the Foxconn nF590SLI board earlier, you can recall that it has space designated for external SATA, but the ports are not physically there.

To the right we see ASUS’s implementation of silent heat pipe technology to cool the North and Southbridge, the MOSFET, and even the 8 phase power management, unlike the Gigabyte motherboard.




Here are the expansion slots. ASUS does nothing special here, just the standard 2 PEG slots, 1 PCI Express X4 slot and 3 PCI slots. ASUS doesn’t use the 8pin power connector like the Foxconn and Gigabyte boards. Rather it uses a 4 pin connection. Almost all power supplies on the market today have a 4 pin connector, so the 8 pin isn’t required. Next to the first PEG slot, you can see 2 fan headers, and 4 more in the other picture. Though this isn’t required or necessary, it is a nice touch. In the picture to the right, you can see all 6 native SATA II ports next to each other. ASUS doesn’t use another controller for additional ports. There shouldn’t be a need for that though, 6 hard drives should be more than enough for everyone.


Here we see the four 240-pin memory slots for DDR2 memory. The two dual channel configurations are clearly marked. The yellow memory slots are one channel and the other channel consists of the black slots. The photo on the right shows a blue PATA connector, a black floppy connector and white 24 pin power connector; all of these connectors are located very conveniently.


Here are the Texas Instruments Firewire and Marvell NIC controllers. Many manufacturers have chosen to make one of the two NIC controllers separate from nVidia’s control despite the fact that the nF570 and nF590 chipsets support dual Ethernet. This is because Marvell’s solutions are usually faster.

Overclocking

The ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe has a BIOS with a very different interface compared to the other three nForce500 motherboards tested here. The Gigabyte, Foxconn, and EPOX motherboards have a Phoenix BIOS, which in our opinion is easier to navigate and use. ASUS’s Award BIOS has all the tweaking features the other motherboards have, if not more, but the layout and appearance is less appealing and more complicated to navigate. Nevertheless, we were able to push the board to a very nice 314MHz limit.