The Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe Motherboard Review

The Bundle

There are very few differences in boards these days when you are running things at default. If you want a board that you make to stand out above the crowd, you have to do something different than the other guys. You will have different feature sets which can make a board stand out or not. You also have boards that are above average overclockers compared to other boards. Lastly, another big separator between boards is the bundle that comes with them. The Asus board has a pretty good bundle to talk about. Let’s take a look at it.

Just looking at everything included, you can tell that there is alot to talk about. You have your standard cables; including SATA, IDE, floppy and power. You also have your typical USB and firewire headers and I/O backplate. Asus also has included a driver and apllications cd and some nice manuals that are plenty detailed. There are a few other thigns to look at here as well.

Asus has included a fan for cooling. This fan sits on top of the heatsinks that are on the moffsets, and help to keep things cool, especially when you are overclocking.

As you can see from the box, this is the WiFi version of the board. Asus has included the WiFi-AP Solo USB wireless module which supports IEEE802.11b/g. This is a nice touch, and allows your computer to be used as an access point or in client mode.

Asus also has included a special mic in this bundle. The SoundMAX Superbeam Array Mic is designed to only receive only the sound coming from the reception cone and ignores background sound from other directions. Basically this is a unidirectional mic that is suppose to help gamers to use their speakers, and yet still be able to have speech clearly heard as you game.

Something I have never seen before would be these pin extenders. These sit on top of the front panel I/O pin connecdtors on the board and on the USB/IEEE1394 headers on the board. This certainly does make things a little easier to manage on the inside of the case.

Asus also included an SLI bridge, but instead of the typical bridge, this one is more like a ribbon cable. Very interesting indeed.

Overall the bundle that comes with this board is very complete, feature rich, and is above what most others are including in their bundles. But, you do have to figure in the extra cost of the Asus board over other boards to see if it will justify the cost difference.