E-tailers across Europe are getting ready for the launch of Nvidia's 780a chipset, and it looks like the Asus M3N-HT Deluxe might be one of the first boards to hit retail. The same board will be available with or without Asus's memory heatpipes.

Although it's based on the same chipset as the Crosshair II Formula, which we told you about earlier, it uses a rather different layout. The board still has three x16 PCIe slots and two PCI slots, but only a single x1 PCIe slot, as this board doesn't use the audio riser card. We're not sure why Asus decided not to include the last x1 slot, as there's no chipset limitation in this case.

The rear I/O is also a bit different, but it still has a D-sub and HDMI connector. You'll also find a single Gigabit Ethernet connector, an eSATA connector, four USB 2.0 and a single PS/2 port on the keyboard here. As mentioned earlier, this board also has the audio jacks at the rear I/O and there is support for 7.1-channel analog outputs, as well as optical and coaxial S/PDIF output.

The board also has headers for a further six USB 2.0 ports, two FireWire ports and a serial and parallel port. It has six internal SATA connectors and an IDE connector, as well.

Expected retail prices of this board seems to be between €200 to about €225 for the Deluxe version and about €210 to €235 for the Deluxe Mempipe version.

Here's a picture of the Deluxe Mempipe version

We've scored an exclusive picture of Asus's upcoming nForce 780a based R.O.G motherboard, the Crosshair II Formula, and it looks like the AMD crowd hasn't been forgotten by Asus, even though in general these days the performance boards are reserved for Intel users.

The Crosshair II Formula has no less than three x16 PCI Express slots, but due to a chipset limitation these will either operate as dual x16 or a single x16 and dual x8 when used with three graphics cards. This chipset also features integrated graphics and will work with Hybrid SLI.

Asus has incorporated both a D-sub and an HDMI connector onto the rear I/O, alongside dual Ethernet, six USB 2.0 ports, FireWire, optical and coaxial S/PDIF out, a PS/2 port for the keyboard and a CMOS reset button. The audio will come courtesy of one of Asus' audio riser cards which fits into the top black x1 PCIe slot.

The board also has two PCI slots and a single x1 PCIe slot. There's also six SATA connectors, but oddly enough, no eSATA; but this might have been reserved for a possible higher-end model. The chipset is passivly cooleed and you'll find an N200 chip on this board just as with the 780i chipset.

It appears as if the board is featuring a 10-phase power regulation, but we're not sure about this. We will let you know as soon as we have more information about the board. This motherboard is fully AM2+ compatible and shouldn't have any problems working with the latest generation of Phenom processors from AMD.