Thoughts, HEXUS.awards, HEXUS.where2buy and HEXUS.right2reply
Both the ASUS CROSSHAIR and M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition have feature sets that are beyond large. They're one step short of making you breakfast in bed. However, with that territory comes a lot to go wrong, and so some of it did. The sound drivers need work, some of the utilities we know and love don't work properly and while the boards support AMD Live!, we see no mention of it in the boards' manuals, not to mention the mystery, seemingly useless extra device we discovered when enabling the feature.
In ASUS's defence, a few bumps here and there is something the enthusiast is accustomed to; it gives enthusiasts something to do... wouldn't want them getting bored now. Hiccups aside, both boards can be stable.
If performance is your thing, then there's satisfaction to be had from these boards. They have good storage subsystems, make the most of the CPU and memory and of course support 32X SLI, although it seems the drivers need a little more work to get consistently awesome framerates.
Both boards have a hilarious number of BIOS features, but the M2N32-SLI came across as slightly more tweakable, reflected by the fact that we could overclock the HTT by 10MHz more than the CROSSHAIR.
ASUS's bundles are exquisite, with extras we hadn't thought of, but know some will find useful, like the noise-canceling microphones. On the flip-side, not everyone will use the bundles to their full, so some will have to ask if the extra money for these boards is worth it?
Weighing in at £150 inc. VAT, with all its LEDs, fancy features and such, the ASUS CROSSHAIR is an undeniably good board, but it's also a mighty expensive one. The M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition is some £25 cheaper, but also carries most of the useful features seen on the CROSSHAIR.
When it comes to the crunch, both boards are well engineered, but there are still issues with nForce 5 that need working on. That will (well, should) come with time. For all its fancy lights and 'Republic of gamers' branding, we don't see the ASUS CROSSHAIR as a worthwhile purchase unless you know that its features are necessary to you, or if you really enjoy showing off. The M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition, then, makes for a cheaper, more tweakable, well performing motherboard that should serve its user well. If we had to choose, we'd go for the M2N32-SLI. It's definitely worth checking out if you've decided to go the route of nForce 5.
We're going to give both boards award for their speed, and we would give the M2N32-SLI a recommendation, were it not for what we feel are a few software related issues that take the sheen off a bit.
HEXUS Where2Buy
The M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition can be obtained from YoyoTech in the UK and Newegg in the US.
The ASUS CROSSHAIR is available from SCAN and Newegg.
HEXUS Right2Reply
At HEXUS.net, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any of ASUS's representatives choose to do so, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
