I ‘love me some ExtremeTech’ today! Man, they have really be all over it lately. And this review of the ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe is certainly no exception!

We’ve always appreciated ASUS motherboards for their clean layout, stability and overall performance. The A8N-SLI is no exception to that design legacy.

Given the nature of the beast, the A8N-SLI layout is a bit cluttered compared to other ASUS designs. Given the constraint of adding a second PCI Express x16 slot, the compromises are really minor. Assuming you’re building an SLI system, you’ll likely lose the use of one standard 32-bit PCI slot and one PCI Express x1 slot. That still leaves you with two accessible 32-bit slots and one x1 slot, although the remaining x1 slot is still a tight fit.

Note the location of the nVidia nForce4 chip, underneath the cooling fan. If you drop in a pair of GeForce 6800 Ultra cards, it’s very unlikely you’ll be able to replace this chipset cooler with a waterblock. It may be possible, but it looked like a hairy enough endeavor that we chose to stick with the cooling fan instead. [Read the rest]