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Today we are looking at ASUS' P5N32-SLI - an NVIDIA nForce4 for Intel-based solution with dual PCIe 16x slots for SLI.

Recently, we have reviewed several dual PCI-E 16x slot motherboards and have noticed no significant difference in performance from the dual 8x slot boards at this time; perhaps future games will tax the systems enough for a real difference to emerge, or perhaps much faster FSB, processors and GPU's will be required to highlight such a difference - but no matter, we still have a motherboard to put under the magnifying glass.

As we have covered nForce motherboards in great depth in the past, we are concentrating mainly on the differentiating features of this ASUS motherboard in this review. Fortunately, ASUS has included a large glossy brochure in our package showcasing the features of the P5N32-SLI Deluxe.

The highlights of the board are as follows:

True dual PCIe 16x slots - "future proofing" the motherboard in case future games and GPUs require PCIe bandwidth in excess of what dual PCIe 8x slots can provide.

Two slot thermal design - allows for more space between the GPUs for better cooling; have you never wondered how well the fans of cards that are squished together work?

8-Phase power design - allows the power circuitry to run cooler and also provides more stable power output.

Heat pipe based fanless design - with optional fans for water cooling or other high efficiency CPU coolers; provides increased air flow over the processor.

Superior overclocking capacity - presumably due to the better power system and cooling

The first things we noticed when we looked at the board were the passive heatsink and the heat pipes going to the finned radiators near the processor.

We also could not help but notice how well built and laid out the board was.

Here is a closer look at the heatsink on the Northbridge, and we can see both heatpipes as well.

In the following closeup we see the the radiators, and get a good view of the capacitors near the processor socket.

Going by what we've seen from previous ASUS boards, we're excited to get started!