Specification and discussion
Specification
| ASUS M2N32-SLI Premium Vista | |
|---|---|
| Item | Specification |
| Processor Support | All AMD AM2 CPUs |
| Northbridge | NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP |
| Southbridge | NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI SPP |
| Memory Support | 4 DIMMs, dual-channel, DDR2-800/667/533, ECC and non-ECC, un-buffered memory, 8GB Max |
| Graphics (main) | 2 x PCI Express x16 slot with NVIDIA® SLI™ technology support, both at full x16 speed |
| PCI Express | 1 x PCI Express x4 1 x PCI Express x1 |
| PCI Conventional | 2 x PCI 2.2 |
| ATA | 1 x Ultra DMA 133 / 100 / 66 / 33 controller |
| SATA | 6 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s provided by nForce 590 SLI SPP |
| RAID | NVIDIA MediaShield™ RAID supports RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 and JBOD span cross using nForce 590 SLI SPP controller RAID 0, 1, and JBOD using Silicon Image® 3132 SATA controller |
| LAN | Dual Gigabit LAN controllers support NVIDIA DualNet® technology NVIDIA nForce® 590 SLI™ MCP built-in dual Gigabit MAC with external Marvell PHY |
| Audio | ADI 1988B 8-channel High Definition Audio CODEC |
| Floppy | 1 x Floppy disk drive connector |
| FireWire | TI 1394 controller supports 2 x 1394a ports |
| USB | 8 x USB2.0 ports (4 ports at mid-board, 4 ports at back panel) |
| I/O ports | 1 x PS/2 Keyboard port 1 x PS/2 Mouse port 1 x Optical + 1 x Coaxial S/PDIF Output 1 x External SATA 2 x LAN (RJ45) port 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 1 x IEEE 1394a port 1 x COM port 8-channel Audio ports |
| Monitoring ASIC | ASUS AI |
| Form factor | ATX Form Factor, 12"x 9.6" (30.5cm x 24.5cm) |
| Current street price | £150 |
Discussion
Almost everything you'd expect of a high-end board is present and correct. The only thing missing, at a glace, is a third PEG slot for those looking to futureproof themselves with the possibility of a three-card SLI + physics setup.
The spec. sheet however doesn't tell the whole story. Nestled down between the first PEG slot and the backplane connectors is a small riser card attached to a USB header.
ASUS call this the ASUS Accelerated Propeller.
Unfortunately this isn't a new personal transportation system that shall make commercial airlines a thing of the past, but, effectively, a small USB device containing 512MiB of flash memory. This provides one of the unique Vista-orientated features of this board, with the intended purpose of being used for ReadyBoost without having to worry about a USB drive sticking out the back of your case all the time.
As for the name, we can't help but think ASUS was just looking for an excuse to use the acronym ASAP. Look out for competitors launching Super Tasty Acceleration Technology and First Awesome Save Time.