M2N32-SLI Deluxe ports, bundle and features
With such a big feature list, ASUS has had to kill off a few legacy items on the M2N32-SLI Deluxe.
PS/2 and RS232 ports remain from days gone by, but all other backplane connectivity could be considered modern. That gives ASUS room for both optical and coaxial S/PDIF (yes!), FireWire and eSATA connections (yes!), four USB 2.0 ports, nForce 590 SLI's two Gigabit Ethernet ports, six analogue sound jacks and the antenna connector for the board's wireless module. That's a pretty damn good backplane line-up.
North-bridge and south-bridge are positioned very close together on the board. The south-bridge's finless heatsink means it won't get in the way of any graphics card coolers. A heatpipe draws heat away from it, to the VRM heatsinks seen on the previous page. With the VRMs and chipsets putting heat into the cooling system, a well ventilated case will be required to keep the components at reasonable temperatures, although there is another option, as we'll see shortly.
Bundle
Brace yourselves for an almighty bundle
Starting at the top, we've got a user guide for the board, next to which is a guide for the Wireless Edition's WLAN adapter. Next to the I/O shield is the 'MediaLauncher' pack, incorporating Intervideo WinDVD Creator2, PhotoAlbum, Disc Master2.5, DVD Copy2.5 and MediaOne Gallery, augmenting the fact that ASUS is pushing this as a Live! board. Along the bottom is the board's driver and utility CD, plus a flyer on some of ASUS's networking equipment.
ASUS has bundled six SATA data cables, three of which come with right-angled connectors; a good call on ASUS's part, for situations where straight connectors just won't fit. There are three double-connector SATA power cables to complement the data cables. Floppy and IDE cables are bundle too, along with extra FireWire and USB 2.0 expansion brackets.
The package gets better still in the final photo. At the top left we have an optional motherboard cooler. Remember we said you'd need a well ventilated case for the passive board cooling to work? This cooler can be used if things prove to be a little to hot to handle. Top right is a SoundMAX Superbeam microphone, noise canceling, no less. There's even Velcro so that users can affix the mic to the top of their monitors.
ASUS Q-Connectors are included too, which take the spaghetti mess of wires from a chassis' front panel cabling and allow the user to fix them to solid blocks prior to fitting them to the motherboard's headers. This allows for easy removal and reinstallation of the board.
Along the bottom we have the antenna for the WiFi-AP Solo wireless adapter (and a rather stylised one at that) along with a flexible SLI bridge connector.
ASUS's bundle exceeded our expectations. They seem to have all bases covered, with sufficient documentation and the necessary accessories & cables, there's everything you need to use all of the board's important features.
