Core 2 Duo MBO Round-up: Part 4
Author: Josip Brombauer
Date: 20 Nov 2006

The fourth and still not the final sequel of our Core 2 MBO saga adds some variety to the predominately P965 crowd. A second 975X board is here, the Intel Bad Axe 2 (D975XBX2), and entering the ring for the first time is a board based on the popular Nvidia nForce 4 SLI x16 chipset, the ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe. How does the Nvidia progeny fare against the mighty Intel brats? Read on to find out?


ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe
This board is another one that had to undergo a revision in order to support the new Intel Core 2 processors. The nForce 4 SLI x16 Intel Edition chipset is a guarantee of excellent performance numbers, and of course, it also has a hidden ace up its sleeve ? SLI multi-GPU support.
The Deluxe boards from the ASUS line-up are traditionally very well equipped, and this board is no exception. As expected, the chipset and MOSFET cooling is achieved through the use of large passive heatsinks connected by a heat-pipe. An 8-phase power regulation is present for added stability. The layout of the board is clean and well thought out.
Two full-fledged x16 PCI Express slots are available to ensure your SLI setup runs at full strength without any bandwidth limitations. The cards are spaced two slots apart in order to increase the air flow between them and maximize the cooling effect. In addition, the board features one PCI-E x4, two PCI-E x1 and two PCI slots.
The nForce 4 SLI x16 chipset supports four IDE (Parallel ATA) and four Serial ATA 3G devices in either standard or RAID configuration (RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5, JBOD), with two more SATA 3G (RAID 0, 1) devices connectable through the on-board Silicon Image 3132 controller. Nvidia?s MediaShield technology enables RAID setups across both IDE and SATA drives. Furthermore, there is an eSATA connector present on the I/O panel.
Network connectivity is provided by two Gigabit Ethernet controllers (one Nvidia, the other Marvell), both equipped with Nvidia ActiveArmor and Firewall for added network security. A maximum of ten USB 2.0 ports are available, and the sound is managed by the Realtek ALC850 8-channel codec. Optical and coaxial S/PDIFs, LPT port and PS/2 ports are also present.
With the board being geared towards gamers, its no surprise that the BIOS is packed with overclocking-friendly features.