ASUS now uses a light black box design for its deluxe motherboards. This is to help you identify the budget, deluxe and premium boards on the shelf of your local ASUS retailer. ASUS doesn’t put a lot of info on their boxes, or any photos, so you are left to wonder just what is featured and what the board actually looks like - guess that’s why we are here.
While the box may lack features, the inside doesn’t. ASUS packs a great bundle into their deluxe range, and even more into the premium. First off we take a look at the manuals and software. ASUS only provides one user manual, but this baby weighs in at 166 pages. This includes a basic install guide at the front, detailed explanation of the features in the second quarter, BIOS and software settings in the third quarter and Crossfire setup in the last quarter.
There are a total of three CD’s that ASUS provides. The first is the driver CD with all of what you need to get Windows up and running. This includes drivers for Windows XP, 2000 and XP 64-bit. The last two CD’s contain a variety of software from Intervideo including Power Producer, WinDVD and WinDVR. ASUS has now partnered with Intervideo to keep this software bundle going with their deluxe and premium boards.
ASUS provides two PCI break out expansion slot brackets. The first contains two USB 2.0 ports and a MIDI/Gameport. The second contains a 6 pin and a 4 pin Firewire port that connect to the onboard headers. ASUS also provides a good cable bundle - 2 IDE, 1 FDD, 5 SATA data and power ports as well as an I/O shield.
