X-bit labs

Dressed to Kill: ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Mainboard Review (page 2)

Category: Mainboards

by Alexey Stepin

[ 12/28/2005 | 12:08 PM ]

The box that contains the mainboard and the accompanying accessories is dark, but the cardboard is glossy rather than matte. There’s nothing superfluous here, just the ASUS and AiLife logotypes and the name of the product. The A8N32-SLI Deluxe comes with the following accessories:

• User manual
• ASUS advertising booklet
• CD with drivers and ASUS software
• InterVideo WinDVD Suite CD
• Bracket with two USB 2.0 and one Game port
• Bracket with two FireWire ports
• Bracket with one COM port
• Six Serial ATA cables
• Three Molex → Serial ATA power adapters, two connectors on each
• 80-pin ATA/133 cable
• 40-pin ATA/33 cable
• FDD cable
• ATX I/O shield
• Flexible SLI connector
• Additional blower to cool the power circuit

Although this is a Deluxe mainboard, its accessories are not exactly luxurious as opposed to the A8N-SLI Deluxe and Premium, but you do get everything necessary to use it. Take note that there is only one two-port USB 2.0 bracket included, so the user can only make use of six out of the ten USB 2.0 ports supported by the chipset unless there are extra ports on the system case.

The idea of a flexible universal SLI connector was long on the mind of enthusiasts of multi-GPU solutions, but all bridges supplied with mainboards were a solid textolite card with two connectors and its length was determined by the placement of the PCI Express x16 slots on the particular mainboard. If the MIO bridge was lost or damaged, the user found itself in a really big trouble. Although a flexible connector was rumored to be impossible, ASUS did make it. This connector can be used not only with the A8N32-SLI Deluxe, but also with any other SLI-compatible mainboard.

The small radial blower that is supposed to be installed on the heatsink of the power circuit’s load-bearing components deserves mentioning, too, but we are going to discuss it in more detail later on.