We’re taking a look at two of ASUS’ highest-end offerings from their motherboard range at the moment. The P5W DH Deluxe is based on the Intel 975X chipset and provides support for Intel’s latest Core 2 CPUs while the M2N32-SLI Deluxe is based on the nVidia nForce 590 chipset and supports the latest, greatest AM2 socket based AMD CPUs. Expectedly, both of these motherboards have a very similar set of features as they’re both from ASUS and target the enthusiast. Lets find out which one we like better.

Both the P5W DH and M2N32-SLI are based on a black/brown PCB and feature passive cooling meaning you wont hear either of them producing any noise. Their cooling design differs a bit and from the looks of it, the nForce 590 probably gets hotter than the 975X chipset. On the M2N32-SLI, ASUS has installed four heatsinks, all of which are connected through heatpipes. Between the heatsinks on the MOSFETs and the Northbridge, there are two heatpipes while the Northbridge and Southbridge are connected using one heatpipe. On the other hand, the P5W DH has just one heatpipe that connects the heatsink on the Northbridge to the one on the MOSFET’s.

All these heatsinks on both the boards cramp up the CPU socket area and make it a bit harder to install the CPU- however, since you’re not really going to be replacing the CPU very often, the passive heatsinks and heatpipes are worth the extra effort. ASUS offers a lot of onboard fan connectors on these boards- there are seven fan headers on the MS32N-SLI and five on the P5W DH and this certainly suggests that you should have some fans in your chassis to circulate air. Both these boards feature ASUS’ Stack Cool 2 technology that effectively transfers heat generated by the critical components to the other side of the PCB.

The main power connector is placed on the right edge on both these boards while the 12v connector is placed on the much preferred top of the board position on the P5W DH. On the M2N32-SLI, ASUS positions the 12v connector next to the first PCI-E slot which will certainly make your system less tidier. Surprisingly, ASUS uses the older 4-pin connector on both these boards compared to the newer 8-pin connector found in most other boards for the 12v connection.

Two x16 PCI-E slots on the M2N32-SLI	EZ Backup SATA RAID ports on the P5W DH

Both the boards have four memory sockets and while they’re placed in a more traditional right side of the CPU on the P5W DH, ASUS places them above the CPU socket on the M2N32-SLI. We really don’t mind either of these configuration. the primary IDE and floppy connectors are also placed towards the right edge of the board while the SATA connectors are more towards the lower side. There are a total of eight SATA ports on the M2N32-SLI with seven onboard and one external while the P5W DH has seven in total, one of which is external and if used, disables one of the onboard SATA port. To compensate, there is an additional IDE port on the P5W DH so the total number of drives that you can connect to either of these boards is ten. The P5W DH also offers “EZ Backup” that automatically sets up a RAID configuration to back your data up without the need of any drivers or BIOS setup.