ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Review - PAGE 2

The Board

At first glance, ASUS' M2N32-SLI's layout doesn't appear to be anything special -- until you do a double-take and start noticing its nuances.

For instance ... six of its SATA ports are grouped tightly together, the RAM slots are placed horizontally across the top of the board, the area around the CPU socket is rather barren, and there is a massive cooling contraption linking together the CPU's power supply components, and running to the north bridge and then to the south bridge.

 

Let's start with ASUS' heatpipe-based cooling solution. The goal of this system is clearly to remove heat from the high-output components on the motherboard -- namely, the CPU's voltage regulators, and the notoriously-hot nForce 590 SLI north bridge. Moving heat away from these components increases their life span and stability, as well as aiding in overclocking.

It sounds good -- at least on paper. There is some controversy surrounding motherboard cooling systems of this sort however, and it can be summarized with a simple question: Once removed, where do the heatpipes carry this heat? By looking at the heatpipe implementation as it is on the M2N32-SLI, it's clear that while the heatsink fins over the voltage regulators do help out with dissipation, the system as a whole simply serves to "even out" the hotspots on the motherboard. Hotter components are cooled down, while components that normally don't heat up very much gain some heat. While I'll reserve judgement before I'm privy to the hard facts, it's probably safe to assume that the system as a whole serves its purpose to some extent.

Fans of over-sized coolers will either love or hate this motherboard -- depending on their cooler of choice. While the area around the CPU socket is barren, as mentioned, the heatsink/heatpipe contraption over the voltage regulator sections could present clearance problems for coolers that overhang in those directions. Otherwise, there is plenty of room, and no tall capacitors to get in the way of installation/clipping.

Next up, let's take a peek at connectivity. ASUS is not being skimpy, and they're attempting to leverage all of the nForce 590's major features. This include six nForce-hosted SATA ports, in addition to a seventh SATA and one eSATA thanks to a Silicon Image Sil3132 controller. Dual Gigabit Ethernet is a no-brainer, and 7.1-channel high-definition audio with both analog and digital coax/optical outputs rounds out the multimedia side of things.

Continuing on, we see two PCI-Express x16 slots with a true 16 lanes of bandwidth to each slot. SLI support is a given, considering the chipset. In addition to those slots, we also have one PCI-Express x4 slot, as well as three legacy PCI slots. Unfortunately, with a double-height video card installed in the first PCI-E x16 slot, the PCI-E x4 slot becomes inaccessible. I would have preferred to sacrifice two legacy PCI slots in a double-height SLI setup, leaving me one PCI and one PCI-E, rather than leaving me just two PCIs.

Fans of IDE storage devices will be disappointed to learn that the M2N32-SLI sports only a single IDE connector -- a limitation of the nForce 5XX series. Those two additional native SATA ports (nForce 4 features only four, as opposed to six in nForce 5XX) have cost us the secondary IDE channel. We've still got the floppy drive connector, but I have a feeling that even that will begin to be phased out within the next year or two.

On the hot-pluggable peripheral front, the M2N32-SLI takes advantage of all ten of the USB interfaces present on the nForce 590 chipset. Four USB ports are provided on the rear I/O panel, while six are in the form of pin headers on the board. Two Firewire 400 ports also grace the M2N32-SLI, one in the form of a physical port, and the second as a set of pins.

No modern home-entertainment PC would be complete without some form of wireless network access, and the M2N32-SLI has that covered with its 802.11g wireless card. It is provided as a removable add-in card, but it rides off a block of standard USB pin headers. While it is a physically proprietary addition due to its having to be plugged in to the specially-located USB pins, it should be relatively easy to turn this card into a removable USB WiFi adapter with a pin-to-plug PCB.

Lastly, we have a peculiarity worthy of mention: Seven fan headers. One of those is an Intel-style four-pin fan header for the CPU (which all of our AM2 boards to date have featured), while the other six are three-pin style. I believe this motherboard sets a record for the number of fan headers.

The Bundle

In my experience, I've found that it's rather difficult to go wrong with an ASUS motherboard bundle -- especially when it comes to their Deluxe edition motherboards. I'm pleased to report that ASUS has not dropped the ball this time around, and as usual, there are plenty of goodies packed away in that innocent-looking box.

Starting with the basics, we have a boatload of SATA-related cables: three power adapters featuring two SATA plugs each, and six SATA data cables. Six and six -- check. The rear I/O brackets pictured above are responsible for providing one Firewire port and two USB ports. Personally, I would have liked to see four USB ports on one bracket, as opposed to two -- especially since there are six USB ports provided through pins on the M2N32-SLI.

We can't forget the other staples of a motherboard bundle. The 80-conductor IDE cable, a floppy cable, the rear I/O shield, and a flexible SLI ribbon are all provided. Manuals and driver CDs are also all there.

Moving on to the more interesting stuff, we have three typically-ASUS toys. The first is a unique-looking WiFi antenna that is designed to be used with the provided wireless card on the M2N32-SLI. The center peg of the antenna rotates upwards 90 degrees, while the circular base acts as a stand.

The fan in the photo above is designed to be clipped on to one of the heatsink blocks on the M2N32-SLI's cooling system, but its purpose is a tad shady. The warning included in the fan pouch reads "Installing the optional fan with an active CPU Cooler will interfere with internal CPU cooler airflow and endanger system stability." ASUS recommends that the fan be used only in conjunction with passive/water CPU coolers. I suppose they assume that the hot air being blown out of the CPU heatsink will serve to create some kind of heat-removing airflow over the leftmost heatsink block, and their optional fan will disturb this.

Lastly, ASUS has thrown in a "soundMAX Superbeam" array microphone. Both ends of this microphone sport a receiver, and the audio jack conducts a stereo signal. The idea behind array microphones mimics the design of our ears and the signal processing our brains do. With multiple "receivers", our brain can concentrate on the principle sound that we want to listen to, and effectively "cancel out" extraneous noise -- even if the source of the sound is moving around.

The Superbeam microphone, aided by some software installed on your computer, filters out noise and "listens" to the primary source of the sound (you), even if you're moving around. Our editor, Redemption, heard this in action on the noisy Computex show floor, and reported that it did a great job at that.

That sums it up for the board and bundle! Let's take a look at the M2N32's BIOS now.