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The M4N82 Deluxe comes in a cardboard box that features the standard green theme from ASUS, used for all motherboards. If I compare to the M4A79 Deluxe, the main difference is that the Quad CrossfireX has been replaced by 3-way SLI. As we have discussed, the chipset is the 'new' 980a. It is mentioned at the top of the box.

The motherboard layout looks standard, except one thing. The voltage regulators' heatsink is not elongated like on most other motherboards; it looks almost as a square. It is placed on a metal plate that covers all voltage regulators so it should still cool efficiently.

The M4N82 features the ASUS Stack Cool 2 technology, which means there is an extra layer of metal in the PCB. Many manufacturers have such designs nowadays. The backplate is made of a thick steel sheet for maximum robustness. One can also see the 'beautiful' PCB color. Seriously though, that dark brown does not look that bad.

Here is a close-up on the voltage regulators' heatsink. There are two indents in each fin allowing the installation of the provided small fan, which we will see later. Also, the M4N82 Deluxe has an 8-pin CPU power connector for the most power hungry processors.

The northbridge heatsink has no fins at all. I would rather call it a big copper block than a heatsink. This means almost all of its heat must travel through the heatpipes and be dissipated by the other two heatsinks. We will see during testing if cooling is adequate.

The other power connector is also EATX compliant, which means it has 24 pins. In the same picture are the memory slots. They are widely spaced. For a dual-channel configuration, the sticks must populate slots of the same color, or all if four sticks are used. The extra spacing allows for an increased airflow between the sticks, especially if they have thick heatspreaders.

Oh boy, there is so much to say about the following picture! First of all, one can see the connectors for the storage devices. The IDE connector has been conserved, which allows a maximum of two devices in a master-slave configuration. Then, there are four angled red SATA connectors. These allow the use of the provided SATA cables only; At first I wanted to use the SATA cables I always use, which have a small metal clip to prevent the cable from unplugging accidentally. However these would not fit in the red connectors, but would be fine in the black one. As one can see, their shape is slightly different. I then noticed the M4A79 Deluxe we took a look at earlier also has such connectors. That is odd since my standard SATA cables have always fitted in motherboards I have tested from other manufacturers. Also, the black connector supports only the RAID and AHCI mode and can be blocked if a large graphics card such as the NVIDIA GTX series is installed in the bottom PCI-E x16 slot. Secondly, in the corner at the left are the front panel connectors. There is a Q-connector supplied which allows an easy plugging of the power and reset buttons, the power and hard drive LEDs, and the speaker. The green LED right beside lights up as soon as power is supplied to the motherboard, even if the computer is shut off. Thirdly, between the IDE connector and the southbridge heatsink are the 3-pin chassis and power fan connectors. Next, behind the SATA connectors are the CMOS Clear and overvoltage protection. To allow a core voltage of more than 1.7V, the jumper must be set in the proper position.

The second chassis fan header is hidden behind the I/O panel audio analog plugs.

If a single or dual graphics card setup is used, both blue PCI-E will run at x16 and the black one will run at x1 only. For 3-way SLI, that is using three graphics cards, all three will run at x8. As one can see, there are also two legacy PCI slots for older devices, and a PCI-E x1 slot for any other device using this interface. There are not much extension cards running on PCI-E slots yet besides graphics cards but there will be more and more as time passes. In the corner at the bottom is the front panel audio connector. It supports HD audio as well as the legacy AC'97. Besides it is the SPDIF output and in red is a Firewire connector. The next connector on the other side of the battery is the serial connector. The last three are USB 2.0 headers.

The I/O panel is exactly the same as its cousin the M4A79 Deluxe. It features six USB ports, an eSATA port and a Firewire port. The audio plugs are the usual six analog ones as well as the coaxial and optical output. There is also a LAN port, obviously. Finally, both PS/2 connectors have been conserved to allow the use of older mouses and keyboards.

Five SATA cables are provided with the ASUS M4N82 Deluxe. Keep in mind not all SATA cables will fit on it. There is also an IDE cable, but no floppy disk drive one. This is what made me notice ASUS decided to remove that old interface. In the upper left corner is the small fan that can be installed on the voltage regulators' heatsink. There is a small guide for its installation, even if it is already explained in the motherboard's user guide. Unfortunately, the fan would not fit because of the Cooler Master V8 I use. Below the IDE cable are the Q-connectors. ASUS also provides a flexible SLI bridge for a dual-card configuration and a 3-way SLI bridge made out of a PCB. The I/O shield is also of the the package, obviously. Finally, a quick guide will help the user installing the ASUS Turbo Key feature, which allows instant overclocking by pressing the power button.

This is what it looks like once the fan has been attached to the heatsink :

Overall, the motherboard is pretty similar to the ASUS M3N-HT we talked about earlier. The only differences I can see is that the floppy disk drive connector as well as one Firewire header have been dropped, there is one less SATA connector and there are no video outputs, even if the 980a 780a has an integrated graphics processor. This means it will be useful only if the user enables HybridPower, which allows shutting off the discrete graphics card to reduce power usage. However, the M4N82 has two more USB ports at the back.