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The Bundle

ASUS usually does quite an impressive job when it comes to their motherboard bundles -- and especially so for their "Deluxe" models. This time is definitely no exception, as you can see below:

An inventory of everything that you see in the photo is as follows:

• Motherboard user's guide
• Motherboard driver CD, with the WinDVD application suite
• Five SATA cables
• Five SATA power connectors (on three cables)
• One 80-conductor IDE cable, one 40-conductor IDE cable, one floppy cable
• Serial port expansion bracket
• Two-port USB 2.0 and game port expansion bracket
• Two-port Firewire/mini Firewire expansion bracket
• Flexible SLI bridge cable
• ASUS fan module (recommended for use with water or passive system cooling solutions)
• Rear I/O bracket

Not too shabby at all. I particularly like the addition of five SATA data and power cables. It really speaks something about the manufacturer when they include enough cabling to make use of all the capabilities of their product right out of the box, rather than having to hunt around in computer stores for some kind of cable or other. That said, let's see what the rest of the board brings.

The Board

At first glance, the A8N32-SLI Deluxe seems to be a winner in the layout department. Not only does it seem to lack clutter issues, but the aesthetics of it are also appealing. This is probably in no way unrelated to ASUS' innovative single-heatpipe cooling design.

The problem with a motherboard that sports two complete chipsets is one of heat. Our DFI Lanparty nF4 SLI-DR has a single chip, and it features an active cooling design. While this does the job, such fans are not only noisy, but prone to failure. ASUS has opted to go with the more engineered option, and has implemented a single heatpipe system that spans across both chips. In the grand scheme of things, this system allows the board to work silently, all while looking more professional.

Moving on, we have to make the standard mention of whether or not the memory slots are obstructed by video cards, and all that other jazz. Fortunately, that is not the case, though there is something that has the potential to be even more annoying.

Consider the following: The typical overclocker makes very good friends with his/her CMOS reset jumper, and usually wastes absolutely no time in doing so. Some of these overclocker types like to put high-end video cards into their systems -- and dare I say, maybe even two such cards. Once that is the case, the CMOS reset jumper becomes useless -- obscured by the second video card in its slot. This is a small oversight on ASUS' part, but it has the potential to be infuriating if you need to reset your CMOS often -- and who doesn't?

In any case, I can't spot any other layout deficiencies. The ATX and Molex power connectors could possibly be placed a tad higher up on the board, so as to prevent the fat ATX cable from draping over the CPU socket region, but that's really starting to get nit-picky.

As far as features are concerned, ASUS has done a great job with some of them. We've already mentioned the interesting cooling design, so let's add a few more:

• Dual Gigabit Ethernet
• Eight-phase power design
• ALC850 7.1 audio codec with coaxial/optica S/PDIF output
• Up to 10 USB 2.0 ports
• Two Firewire ports
• Five SATA II ports
• Three PCI slots, in addition to the two PCI-Express x16 slots
• NVIDIA-powered SATA II RAID (RAID 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD, and ... 5!)
• ASUS proprietary technologies, such as AI Overclocking, CrashFree BIOS, AI C.P.R., and Stack Cool

It's apparent that ASUS is targeting the enthusiast market with this motherboard. With loads of room for expansion, and ASUS' excellent overclocking capabilities to boot, this board ought to be a favourite.

One thing I would have been absolutely thrilled to see is an integrated Creative SoundBlaster Live!/Audigy, rather than the usual Realtek ALC850 codec. A few motherboards on the market already feature such an extravagant audio solution, and I would be delighted to see ASUS make that move as well.

The physical side of things is looking delightful for the ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe. What does the BIOS have in store for us?