Description

Asus B150 Pro Gaming/Aura mobo lights up budget builds

Builders of Skylake-based budget systems already have no shortage of options, thanks to entry-level motherboards based on the B150 chipset. Asus is adding to that selection with its B150 Pro Gaming and B150 Pro Gaming/Aura. These ATX boards seem to be identical in every way save for one, ahem, illuminating feature.

The B150 Pro Gaming/Aura’s multi-colored LEDs make it a little different than the average budget Skylake motherboard. These programmable lights have several control schemes, including always-on, strobing, and color cycle modes. The lights can also respond to changes in CPU temperature and load.

In both its Aura and non-Aura forms, the B150 Pro Gaming has a pair each of PCI Express x16, x1, and PCI slots. Only one of those PCIe x16 slots is connected to the CPU’s lanes, though. The bottom PCIe x16 slot and the pair of PCIe x1 slots share four lanes from the B150 chipset. Four DIMM slots can hold up to 64GB of DDR4-2133 memory.

Despite the budget chipset, connectivity options abound. Six SATA 3.0 ports sit alongside an M.2 slot with two PCIe 3.0 lanes, which does represent a step down from most Z170 boards. Alongside the B150 chipset’s USB 3.0 ports, these boards have an ASMedia USB 3.1 chip that feeds both a Type-A and a Type-C port.

These boards use Realtek ALC1150 audio codecs with Asus’ SupremeFX enhancement suite. An Intel Gigabit Ethernet controller handles wired networking. Last, but certainly not least, the company’s Fan Xpert3 fan speed controls have come along for the ride, too.