There is plenty of space between the two PCI Express x16 slots so you can install videocards with dual slot heatsinks. There is PCI Express x4 slot, and three regular 32 bit PCI slots. Note the location of the floppy drive connector, you'll want to connect that thing first before putting the motherboard into the case. The upper slot that looks like a PCI Express x1, isn't, it is for the audio card only.

Looking at the bottom right hand corner of the Asus M2-CROSSHAIR motherboard we find one IDE channel, two USB2.0 headers, and six Serial ATA II channels. The front panel I/O connectors, and power and reset buttons are also shown here. The system supports RAID 0/1/5/10 via the nVIDIA MCP55XE Southbridge chipset; NCQ and 'hot plug' are standard. The Southbridge chipset generates a fair amount of heat, but a heatpipe transfers the heat too two larger copper heatsinks around the CPU socket.

The Asus M2-CROSSHAIR has four 240-pin DDR-2 memory DIMM slots which accommodate 8GB of DDR-2 800/667/533 RAM. Populate the DIMM slots of the same colour first, for dual channel memory. Note Asus uses a lot of solid state capacitors with the M2-CROSSHAIR motherboard.