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     Asus has provided a very complete bundle which makes the motherboard not only full features, but very easy to install. Like most modern boards, the rear Multi-I/O panel is far from the ATX standard, but Asus has provided the necessary EMI shield. Among the multitude of connectors here, we have the Coaxial and Optical S/PDIF audio ports as well a four USB 2.0 ports, the RJ-45 Gigabit LAN port and the IEEE 1394 Firewire port. A legacy Parallel port and the single Serial port complete the package and are included more for nostalgic purposes, while the array of audio headers flash more into modern times with support for 8 channel audio. Though the ports are color coded, the provided Ai audio driver will query the user each time a device is plugged into any of the ports, thereby reducing configuration hassles and aiding the process of getting things up and running quickly.

     The rest of physical installation went according to plan. A screw here, a screw there and the motherboard is snuggled nicely inside the enclosure.  To help reinforce the mounting of heatsinks, the underside mount for the heatsink retention mechanism has been permanently fixed to the motherboard. However, both the Swiftech MCX-6400-V and the Cooler Master Aqua Gate mounted perfectly with the studs.

     The Bios

     The board came to us with BIOS revision 1003 but a recent release, version 1005, has taken care of a few minor issues which I will explain when I reach that particular setup page. Here we can see the main menu of the AMI BIOS. The nForce3-250Gb native Serial ATA channels are acting as lone IDE channels. I used to use a pair of Western Digital "WD1600" IDE hard drives with a set of HightPoint Rocket Head Serial ATA to IDE adapters. On every other board I've used these adapters on, the drives have identified and even functioned perfectly. Even after the 1005 BIOS flash, the Asus K8N-E Deluxe will identify the drives, but the POST will hang indefinitely at the final Operating Boot sequence if the adapters are attached to the SATA ports. Of course, once they are removed the system will act normally. So for data storage I now use the Maxtor DiamondMax10 16Meg Cache 300GB hard disk, shown attached to the Third IDE Master channel.

     Here we can see the a small menu dedicated to the "Advanced" CPU setup options. BIOS Revision 1004 made the Hyper Transport Ratio setting available, but revision 1005 greatly simplified the Overclocking process. While the ability to adjust Front Side Bus, Multiplier, and Voltage are all present on the K8N-E Deluxe, until BIOS revision 1005 was installed, the AMD Cool 'N Quiet Configuration HAD to be ENABLED before those settings would become available. Thank you Asus for that improvement! If you look closely at the reported speed of the processor, you can see I didn't waste ANY time exploring the overclocking possibilities of the motherboard.