Slots

When installing a two-slot video card you will lose access to the PCI-E x1 slot. A better choice would have been to swap one PCI-E x1 and PCI slot.


This included small form factor PCI-E card has the DVI port on-board. It doesn't contain any major circuitry. No, this is not a DVI video card that will work alone in another motherboard.
The DVI port is DVI-D digital only, so you can not use a DVI to analog adapter to get a second analog output. You could use a DVI to HDMI adapter to get a second HDMI output though.
The DVI card's PCB (without the slot cover metal) is 67 mm tall, of which 6 mm go into the PCI-E slot.

Cooling

Like on all other RS690 motherboards the heatsinks are very small because the chipset and southbridge have extremely low heat output.

Chips

ITE's 8712F monitoring chip is one of the most common monitoring chips on the market and is supported by most applications.


The RTL810S-32 Gigabit Ethernet chip is connected via PCI Bus and offers low-cost Gigabit Ethernet.


Like many other ATI chipset based boards, the ASUS M2A-VM uses the ICS 951462 clockgenerator.


The Realtek ALC882D supports Dolby Digital Live output. You can get SPDIF input and outputs via an included bracket.

Capacitors