Verdict: SLI on the cheap, but it's a poor overclocker

Although Nvidia specifically launched the nForce 5-series chipsets for the Socket AM2 platform, there's no reason why an nForce4 SLI chipset can't be adapted to support Socket AM2 chips.

This is precisely what Asus has done with its M2N4-SLI, which partners last year's premier chipset, the nForce4 SLI, with Socket AM2. This means that the board has two high-speed PCI-E slots, although, as it uses the original nForce4 SLI chipset and not the nForce4 SLI X16 chipset, both slots have just eight PCI-E lanes in SLI mode.

The nForce4 SLI chipset also doesn't support the wizzy new features of the nForce5-series, such as EPP/SLI memory and FirstPacket. However, the M2N4-SLI has four RAID-capable S-ATA II ports and ten USB 2 ports, although it lacks Intel HD Audio, resorting to naff 6-channel AC97 sound instead.

The nForce4 SLI chipset was always a great performer, so not surprisingly, at stock settings, the M2N4-SLI held its own against the more expensive motherboards based on newer ATi and Nvidia chipsets. The BIOS is another matter altogether, though, as it doesn't allow you to increase the vcore or chipset voltage, although you can increase the RAM voltage to 1.95V. Given that the JEDEC standard for PC2-5300 DDR2 DIMMs is 1.8V, the M2N4-SLI provides barely any ability to overvolt your memory. The FSB can be increased to an optimistic 400MHz but, as there's no option to increase the vcore, we only succeeded in overclocking the FSB of our test CPU from 200MHz to 220MHz. Even when we dropped the CPU multiplier from 11 to 5, the highest stable FSB that the M2N4-SLI managed was a pitiful 230MHz.

The nForce4 SLI chipset was the ideal partner for Socket 939 Athlon 64 CPUs but, on the Socket AM2 platform, the M2N4-SLI fails to impress, due to its basic BIOS. At £65, the M2N4-SLI is good value for money for an SLI motherboard but, since overclocking is essential to get the most from an Athlon 64 CPU, we can't recommend it.

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