ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe WiFi Edition

Rob Williams · 09-03-2006, 09:19 PM

The M2N32-SLI Deluxe is one feature packed motherboard in every sense of the word. Whether you are a hardcore gamer, enthusiast overclocker or Joe HTPC, this board delivers what you are looking for.

You can read the full review right here and then discuss it here!

09-04-2006, 11:50 AM

Isn't the fan supposed to blow air out ???

Rob Williams · 09-04-2006, 12:03 PM

I can't see how it could. The only openings is on the bottom, where air blows onto the chipset, and on each side of the fan. After turning it on, I couldn't feel air blowing out either side of the fan. I fail to really understand how it sucks cool air in, either.

I could be analyzing it wrong, but it's a simple cooler, and just doesn't make much sense to me.

Jakal · 09-04-2006, 12:46 PM

From my understanding, the fan is the same as what is provided in previous Asus boards. The heatpipe coolers are supposed to be actively cooled by the fan. Drawing air in from the side and exhausting it onto the fins of the heatpipe. This "blower" design is not as cooling effective, unless there is high rpm. That's the main reason heatsink fans have kept the same basic design over the years. The biggest advantage is that you can point the air into any particular direction. Input through the side exhaust at the bottom.

Here's an example of a Thermaltake chipset cooler.
http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/coolers/chipset/a1899.htm

Note how the rated rpms go from 5k-9k. The design requires that much higher of an rpm to acheive the same airflow as a regular 40mm fan. They are effective, but they cannot acheive both low noise and high airflow.

I have a friend that used a cpu heatsink based off the same principle. He spent something like $60 because it was the latest. We had similar chips. He a AMD XP2600+ and I a 2400+. I purchased a Volcano 12 for under $30. Turns out the Volcano kept his chip roughly 5c cooler at lower rpms. He eventually bought another heatsink.

madstork91 · 09-04-2006, 12:51 PM

If not this exact board then one with a very simular layout and design was used when I build my friends new PC. The only complaint I had about it was the onboard sound. It was complete garbage.

dloneranger · 09-04-2006, 12:56 PM

The manual states that the fan is only to be used if are using a watercooled solution for your cpu - they include it in a lot of the motherboards with heatpipes
Personally I use it to cool a hard drive - works great

dloneranger · 09-04-2006, 01:30 PM

Oh, a few other things

1)The microphone came with a sticky velcro thing in my package - one half on the microphone, the other on the monitor and no more falling off the back

Also the reason it's got two microphones is that it's a noise cancelling version - it does a pretty good job of just picking up what's between the two microphones and ignoring what's outside of them, great if you want to chat and listen to music/play games at the same time

2)It only has one PATA ide socket

If you're upgrading and have 2 PATA drives and 2 dvd drives then your out of luck - you've got to get an IDE PCI card and finding ones that work with dvd's can be a problem

3) At least on mine, the wireless lan card is removable - I took mine out and put it into my server (that uses a similar board from asus)
I don't actually use it (luck enough to move into a house that has lan sockets in every room!!), but it's handy when people bring laptops around - saves hunting for cables to patch into the switch

4)They also do a souped up version of this board called 'Crosshair' that has some nice features - the lit-up back panel is kinda cute and saves having to find a torch or pull the pc out when you're trying to find the usb ports
http://uk.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1...83&modelmenu=1

5)The only thing I don't like about it is that it's not very resistant to spilling a can of beer into the pc - it go boom!!!!
I'd be happy to pay extra for a water resistant version - my cheap watch can do it

Rob Williams · 09-04-2006, 01:37 PM

Thanks for the comments dloneranger...

Regarding the chipset fan... I do run a water cooling rig but fail to see why exactly it would matter. It clips perfectly on the heatsink, and in the manual it shows a solution with two of them... one on each appropriate area.

As for the microphone, I didn't have a clue about the noise cancelling... interesting. I never did much testing in that regard because I don't have good speakers hooked up. I only used headphones for a half hour.

Wireless... Ok I hope I can't remove mine, because I am not sure how I'd overlook something so simple. It looked like it was integrated into the board when I took a look. I will check it out later.

Crosshair... yes I want that only for the sake of the 3.425vdimm. I have a DFI on the way that allows for 3.0vdimm though, so it should suffice.

dloneranger · 09-04-2006, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob Williams

Regarding the chipset fan... I do run a water cooling rig but fail to see why exactly it would matter. It clips perfectly on the heatsink, and in the manual it shows a solution with two of them... one on each appropriate area.

I think that's for illustration of where they go

When the cpu uses a standard heatsink/fan, the airflow blows through the heatpipe coolers but when you use watercooling you dont get any airflow and need the extra fan

It's not mentioned in detail in the manual for this board, but in other asus boards I've got (eg a8n-sli deluxe), there's a better description that warns you to not install the fan unless you use water cooling - but it's still usefull as way too cool a specific thing that might get too hot

ps I edited my post (2 above)

Rob Williams · 09-04-2006, 01:56 PM

I agree... it may not be completely useless. I would just expect it to have a more popular design maybe... I don't know.

As for a beer resistant PC, I am not sure about that. I know that's something Greg here could benefit from :-D

dloneranger · 09-04-2006, 02:10 PM

It's a common failing
I think I'm keeping logitech in the green with the amount of keyboards I have to buy - I seem to have a fascination with spilling things into them
It's got to the point where I buy them in bulk to save time

Rob Williams · 09-04-2006, 02:19 PM

Haha! I do occasionally drop something into my keyboard, but nothing major. Regardless, I guarentee my keyboard is more germ induced than the rest of the house, heh.

Taking a macro shot can verify that =/

BlindMonk · 09-04-2006, 06:08 PM

Btw, this review was just linked in Anandtech's "daily" hardware segment.

Rob Williams · 09-04-2006, 06:21 PM

Aye, they are good to us over there. Just to set things straight though, DailyTech is a seperate entity from AnandTech :P

BlindMonk · 09-04-2006, 06:29 PM

Technically, sure. Spiritually, they will always be of one blood in my mind.

09-03-2006, 09:19 PM	#1
Rob Williams Editor-in-Chief Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Atlantic Canada Posts: 13,231	ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe WiFi Edition The M2N32-SLI Deluxe is one feature packed motherboard in every sense of the word. Whether you are a hardcore gamer, enthusiast overclocker or Joe HTPC, this board delivers what you are looking for. You can read the full review right here and then discuss it here! __________________ Intel Core i7-990X EE @ 3.43GHz, GIGABYTE X58A-UD5, Kingston 12GB DDR3-1333, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD, WD VR 1TB, WD 2TB, Seagate 2TB, LG BD-ROM, ASUS DVD-RW, Corsair 1000HX, Corsair H60 Cooler Corsair 800D, Dell 2408WFP 24", ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Gentoo (KDE 4.10, 3.7 Kernel) "Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get!" - H.P. Baxxter <Toad772> I don't always drink alcohol, but when I do, I take it too far.

09-04-2006, 11:50 AM	#2
Unregistered Guest Poster Posts: n/a	Chipset Fan Isn't the fan supposed to blow air out ???

09-04-2006, 12:03 PM	#3
Rob Williams Editor-in-Chief Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Atlantic Canada Posts: 13,231	I can't see how it could. The only openings is on the bottom, where air blows onto the chipset, and on each side of the fan. After turning it on, I couldn't feel air blowing out either side of the fan. I fail to really understand how it sucks cool air in, either. I could be analyzing it wrong, but it's a simple cooler, and just doesn't make much sense to me. __________________ Intel Core i7-990X EE @ 3.43GHz, GIGABYTE X58A-UD5, Kingston 12GB DDR3-1333, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD, WD VR 1TB, WD 2TB, Seagate 2TB, LG BD-ROM, ASUS DVD-RW, Corsair 1000HX, Corsair H60 Cooler Corsair 800D, Dell 2408WFP 24", ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Gentoo (KDE 4.10, 3.7 Kernel) "Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get!" - H.P. Baxxter <Toad772> I don't always drink alcohol, but when I do, I take it too far.

09-04-2006, 12:46 PM	#4
Jakal Tech Monkey Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Missiskippy Posts: 634	From my understanding, the fan is the same as what is provided in previous Asus boards. The heatpipe coolers are supposed to be actively cooled by the fan. Drawing air in from the side and exhausting it onto the fins of the heatpipe. This "blower" design is not as cooling effective, unless there is high rpm. That's the main reason heatsink fans have kept the same basic design over the years. The biggest advantage is that you can point the air into any particular direction. Input through the side exhaust at the bottom. Here's an example of a Thermaltake chipset cooler. http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/coolers/chipset/a1899.htm Note how the rated rpms go from 5k-9k. The design requires that much higher of an rpm to acheive the same airflow as a regular 40mm fan. They are effective, but they cannot acheive both low noise and high airflow. I have a friend that used a cpu heatsink based off the same principle. He spent something like $60 because it was the latest. We had similar chips. He a AMD XP2600+ and I a 2400+. I purchased a Volcano 12 for under $30. Turns out the Volcano kept his chip roughly 5c cooler at lower rpms. He eventually bought another heatsink. __________________ Intel C2Quad Q9400 @3.6Ghz \| Asus PM5Q Deluxe \| OCZ Reaper HPC PC2-8500 8GB \| XFX Black Edition 260/216\| knobs are great for twisting, turning, squeezing and pulling... especially your own..... that's how doors open \| Chaos Havok: grrrr im lagging me \| <@Deathspawner> I wish I was in Windows :-/

09-04-2006, 12:51 PM	#5
madstork91 The One, The Only... Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: TEXAS! Posts: 1,434	If not this exact board then one with a very simular layout and design was used when I build my friends new PC. The only complaint I had about it was the onboard sound. It was complete garbage. __________________ ..

09-04-2006, 12:56 PM	#6
dloneranger Obliviot Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 17	The manual states that the fan is only to be used if are using a watercooled solution for your cpu - they include it in a lot of the motherboards with heatpipes Personally I use it to cool a hard drive - works great

09-04-2006, 01:30 PM	#7
dloneranger Obliviot Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 17	Oh, a few other things 1)The microphone came with a sticky velcro thing in my package - one half on the microphone, the other on the monitor and no more falling off the back Also the reason it's got two microphones is that it's a noise cancelling version - it does a pretty good job of just picking up what's between the two microphones and ignoring what's outside of them, great if you want to chat and listen to music/play games at the same time 2)It only has one PATA ide socket If you're upgrading and have 2 PATA drives and 2 dvd drives then your out of luck - you've got to get an IDE PCI card and finding ones that work with dvd's can be a problem 3) At least on mine, the wireless lan card is removable - I took mine out and put it into my server (that uses a similar board from asus) I don't actually use it (luck enough to move into a house that has lan sockets in every room!!), but it's handy when people bring laptops around - saves hunting for cables to patch into the switch 4)They also do a souped up version of this board called 'Crosshair' that has some nice features - the lit-up back panel is kinda cute and saves having to find a torch or pull the pc out when you're trying to find the usb ports http://uk.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1...83&modelmenu=1 5)The only thing I don't like about it is that it's not very resistant to spilling a can of beer into the pc - it go boom!!!! I'd be happy to pay extra for a water resistant version - my cheap watch can do it Last edited by dloneranger; 09-04-2006 at 01:54 PM.

09-04-2006, 01:37 PM	#8
Rob Williams Editor-in-Chief Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Atlantic Canada Posts: 13,231	Thanks for the comments dloneranger... Regarding the chipset fan... I do run a water cooling rig but fail to see why exactly it would matter. It clips perfectly on the heatsink, and in the manual it shows a solution with two of them... one on each appropriate area. As for the microphone, I didn't have a clue about the noise cancelling... interesting. I never did much testing in that regard because I don't have good speakers hooked up. I only used headphones for a half hour. Wireless... Ok I hope I can't remove mine, because I am not sure how I'd overlook something so simple. It looked like it was integrated into the board when I took a look. I will check it out later. Crosshair... yes I want that only for the sake of the 3.425vdimm. I have a DFI on the way that allows for 3.0vdimm though, so it should suffice. __________________ Intel Core i7-990X EE @ 3.43GHz, GIGABYTE X58A-UD5, Kingston 12GB DDR3-1333, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD, WD VR 1TB, WD 2TB, Seagate 2TB, LG BD-ROM, ASUS DVD-RW, Corsair 1000HX, Corsair H60 Cooler Corsair 800D, Dell 2408WFP 24", ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Gentoo (KDE 4.10, 3.7 Kernel) "Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get!" - H.P. Baxxter <Toad772> I don't always drink alcohol, but when I do, I take it too far.

09-04-2006, 01:56 PM	#10
Rob Williams Editor-in-Chief Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Atlantic Canada Posts: 13,231	I agree... it may not be completely useless. I would just expect it to have a more popular design maybe... I don't know. As for a beer resistant PC, I am not sure about that. I know that's something Greg here could benefit from :-D __________________ Intel Core i7-990X EE @ 3.43GHz, GIGABYTE X58A-UD5, Kingston 12GB DDR3-1333, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD, WD VR 1TB, WD 2TB, Seagate 2TB, LG BD-ROM, ASUS DVD-RW, Corsair 1000HX, Corsair H60 Cooler Corsair 800D, Dell 2408WFP 24", ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Gentoo (KDE 4.10, 3.7 Kernel) "Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get!" - H.P. Baxxter <Toad772> I don't always drink alcohol, but when I do, I take it too far.

09-04-2006, 02:10 PM	#11
dloneranger Obliviot Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 17	It's a common failing I think I'm keeping logitech in the green with the amount of keyboards I have to buy - I seem to have a fascination with spilling things into them It's got to the point where I buy them in bulk to save time Last edited by dloneranger; 09-04-2006 at 02:10 PM. Reason: Spelling

09-04-2006, 02:19 PM	#12
Rob Williams Editor-in-Chief Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Atlantic Canada Posts: 13,231	Haha! I do occasionally drop something into my keyboard, but nothing major. Regardless, I guarentee my keyboard is more germ induced than the rest of the house, heh. Taking a macro shot can verify that =/ __________________ Intel Core i7-990X EE @ 3.43GHz, GIGABYTE X58A-UD5, Kingston 12GB DDR3-1333, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD, WD VR 1TB, WD 2TB, Seagate 2TB, LG BD-ROM, ASUS DVD-RW, Corsair 1000HX, Corsair H60 Cooler Corsair 800D, Dell 2408WFP 24", ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Gentoo (KDE 4.10, 3.7 Kernel) "Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get!" - H.P. Baxxter <Toad772> I don't always drink alcohol, but when I do, I take it too far.

09-04-2006, 06:08 PM	#13
BlindMonk Coastermaker Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Missouri, US Posts: 124	Btw, this review was just linked in Anandtech's "daily" hardware segment. __________________ + E6300 \| Gigabyte EP35-DS3R \| 2GB OCZ PC2-6400 \| BLT \| ASUS 4850 512MB Antec 550 TrueControl \| Tater tots \| Gateway FHD2400 \| Chipotle

09-04-2006, 06:21 PM	#14
Rob Williams Editor-in-Chief Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Atlantic Canada Posts: 13,231	Aye, they are good to us over there. Just to set things straight though, DailyTech is a seperate entity from AnandTech :P __________________ Intel Core i7-990X EE @ 3.43GHz, GIGABYTE X58A-UD5, Kingston 12GB DDR3-1333, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD, WD VR 1TB, WD 2TB, Seagate 2TB, LG BD-ROM, ASUS DVD-RW, Corsair 1000HX, Corsair H60 Cooler Corsair 800D, Dell 2408WFP 24", ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Gentoo (KDE 4.10, 3.7 Kernel) "Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get!" - H.P. Baxxter <Toad772> I don't always drink alcohol, but when I do, I take it too far.

09-04-2006, 06:29 PM	#15
BlindMonk Coastermaker Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Missouri, US Posts: 124	Technically, sure. Spiritually, they will always be of one blood in my mind. __________________ + E6300 \| Gigabyte EP35-DS3R \| 2GB OCZ PC2-6400 \| BLT \| ASUS 4850 512MB Antec 550 TrueControl \| Tater tots \| Gateway FHD2400 \| Chipotle

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