If you like the idea of Nvidia's Scalable Link Interface (SLI) technology but fancy building your own system rather than buying one, the A8N-SLI Deluxe from Asus is a great starting point. Currently sitting at the top of the company's Socket 939 product line, the board is packed with features.

The A8N-SLI Deluxe is based around the SLI version of Nvidia's Nforce 4 chipset, and comes with two 16x PCI Express graphics card slots. These operate at 16-speed in single VGA mode or as a pair of eight-speed slots if two cards are joined using SLI. You also get two 1x PCI Express slots and three PCI slots.

The Nforce chipset has two dedicated Sata controllers, which support the latest 3Gbits/sec transfer rates and two ATA133 ports. Raid configurations can be set up using both Sata and ATA drives in the same array, and you can choose from Raid 0, 1, 0+1 and Jbod settings.

A further four Sata ports are controlled by a Silicon Image chip. The dual-integrated Gigabit Lan is protected by a hardware firewall, which Nvidia has christened NVActivearmour. It's easy to use and a doddle to set up.

On top of all this there's support for up to 10 USB2 ports, two Firewire sockets, integrated 7.1 audio and a host of Asus utilities. If you're looking to build a high-performance Athlon64 system, the A8N-SLI Deluxe is an excellent choice.

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