Nearly two months ago ATI released their Radeon Xpress chipset for AMD cpu’s, it was one of the first boards to be with reviewers which featured PCI Express for the AMD platform. The Xpress chipset has yet to make it to market however the NForce 4 boards are beginning to trickle through; one of the first boards to do so is the Asus A8N-SLI. It’s no secret that we love Asus products here at Driverheaven, over the last 2 years every product we have received from them has been first class in terms of performance and build quality, so going into the review we hoped for the same from the A8N-SLI.

Packaging:
It doesn’t affect the performance or final conclusion on a product but hardware that arrives with us in a stunning box does give a sense of quality. In this regard the A8N doesn’t disappoint. The box comes in 2 parts; the outer sleeve is a gloss finish which catches the light well and also opens up to reveal features of the motherboard…

Inside the white gloss sleeve is the main motherboard box, it’s the standard motherboard design. Overall its one of the nicest box designs we’ve seen, only beaten by the ultra cool Gigabyte K8NXP9.