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Asus P5ND2-SLI Deluxe Motherboard Review :: Layout and Bundle
Layout of the board is generally excellent. The 4-pin power connector is above the CPU on the top right hand side of the board. I like this positioning so I can route the 4-pin power connector directly from the power supply without it interfering with airflow or wiring. The 24-pin ATX connector is on the bottom right hand side of the board next to the IDE ports. I'm not sure I like the positioning, as I prefer the IDE cable area to be separate for easy removal in the case.  4-pin Power  Chipset cooler  NB Heat Sink Normally I recommend a motherboard with a chipset fan as the North Bridge tends to get very warm. On this board, ASUS decided to take a fanless design into the next level. There's a large heat sink covering the NVIDIA MCP chip, allowing the chipset to be cool without a fan. One advantage of this approach is a fan can make a lot of extra noise on the computer. Asus also includes a heat sink covering the South Bridge chip. Bundle
ASUS really went all out on the hardware bundle for the P5ND2-SLI board. There are headers for 2 USB brackets on the board. ASUS included 2 additional USB 2.0 ports via bracket bringing the total supported USB ports on the board to 6. One thing ASUS did that I don't particularly like is have a separate Serial port bracket and Firewire bracket. They could have easily put the two on one bracket saving one PCI slot for expansion.    Software wise, the P5ND2-SLI board comes with a minimal bundle. WinDVD is an excellent DVD player. Most motherboard manufacturers include some kind of antivirus software, ASUS decided to include Norton's Internet Security 2005, a comprehensive firewall and antivirus suite. One nice thing about ASUS and its Deluxe bundles is the fact that they include everything you would need to fully use the motherboard. Contents:
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