Asus Adds LEDs To B150 Pro Gaming Motherboard

[kewlguy239]

Asus announced two new budget-oriented gaming motherboards: the B150 Pro Gaming/Aura and B150 Pro Gaming. These ATX-sized motherboards are identical in every way – except that the Aura version features customizable LED lighting.

Asus Adds LEDs To B150 Pro Gaming Motherboard : Read more

 

[Alec Mowat]

We added two PCI slots, so you can SLI your PCI Geforce 6600's, or add an ultra fast 100/10 NIC!

Why do they even bother with PCI? Even if you had a PCI card, where are you going to get the Windows 10 drivers?

 

[3ogdy]

That was funny! I read it in Xzibit's voice too.
Not to get technical, but...the GeForce 6600s never had a PCI-based version. Not as far as I can remember. Maybe the 6200?

 

[techy1966]

We added two PCI slots, so you can SLI your PCI Geforce 6600's, or add an ultra fast 100/10 NIC!

Why do they even bother with PCI? Even if you had a PCI card, where are you going to get the Windows 10 drivers?

Interesting my PCI sound blaster audigy 4 pro seems to work fine in windows 10

 

[DongleKin]

We added two PCI slots, so you can SLI your PCI Geforce 6600's, or add an ultra fast 100/10 NIC!

Why do they even bother with PCI? Even if you had a PCI card, where are you going to get the Windows 10 drivers?

I agree, conventional PCI is a dinosaur now. Save me the cost of the bridge IC and the PCI connectors.

 

[TunaSoda]

"Budget Oriented / Pro Gaming"

yeah, that makes sense...

 

[Zentropa]

Silly..

 

[Gam3r01]

I find it hard to recommend anything lower than an H series board. Sure there are quality B series board, and this is looking to be one of them, but their lack of features for minimal price savings is almost never worth it.
I would still go H170 or Z170 on this.

 

[wysir]

Why LED up a portion of the MoBo that is going to be at least 50% blocked with a GPU?

 

[Victorion]

[quotemsg=16930549,0,893057]Why LED up a portion of the MoBo that is going to be at least 50% blocked with a GPU?[/quotemsg]

That and why use extra money and watts for something so superflous?

I rather have a stylish setup than a bling bling case that reminds me of something coming out of the movie "don´t be a menace to society while drinking juice in the hood"

 

[xenol]

I'm not understanding why manufacturers are making souped up B150 series motherboards. Not only are these business oriented (well, that doesn't mean much) but they're the bottom of the barrel for that sector. It's like they don't want to touch the H110.

 

[blazorthon]

B150 has more features/connectivity than H110, same as B85 versus H81. It is technically a better baseline for low-budget gaming.
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Z170-H170-H110-B170-Q150-Q170---What-is-the-Difference-635/#ConsumerChipsets(Z170,H170,H110)

 

[George Phillips]

I actually like this integrated light feature a lot. I surely will seriously consider one with the light for my next gaming build.

 

[BulkZerker]

Processors s a bit steep for scraping the bottom of the barrel to piece together a game rig. I guess you could buy this and upgrade the mobo when you get the money later on and use it to make your parents a cheap ish PC.with led blinking stuff.

 

[blazorthon]

Most gamers don't overclock nor do they use Crossfire/SLI. With that said, there's little reason to get more than this for most gamers.

 

[c0rr0sive]

We added two PCI slots, so you can SLI your PCI Geforce 6600's, or add an ultra fast 100/10 NIC!

Why do they even bother with PCI? Even if you had a PCI card, where are you going to get the Windows 10 drivers?

To be fairly honest, PCI can support a 1Gbit NIC in full duplex just fine in my experiences, and we still have a ton of things that PCI is useful for, and will be useful for the next 5-10 years. To be fairly honest, we may have PCI around even longer unless someone decides to finally give us x7 slots that are x16 lanes each instead of a bunch of junk.

 

[blazorthon]

[quotemsg=17079485,0,1938291]


To be fairly honest, PCI can support a 1Gbit NIC in full duplex just fine in my experiences, and we still have a ton of things that PCI is useful for, and will be useful for the next 5-10 years. To be fairly honest, we may have PCI around even longer unless someone decides to finally give us x7 slots that are x16 lanes each instead of a bunch of junk.[/quotemsg]

PCI has a maximum of 133MB/s for all slots in a system together (not even per slot). Also, PCIe x1 slots, even of the oldest gen 1 slots, have 250MB/s of bandwidth. The common PCIe x1 gen 2 slots have double that at 500MB/s and the less common but upcoming PCIe x1 gen 3 slots have almost double that again at about 1GB/s.

PCI is capable of up to 533MB/s with the right slot and hardware, only 133MB/s versions are supported in modern hardware. I'm not saying we need to get rid of it because it's still common for some sound cards, TV tuners, and other things, but it is showing its age and you don't need x16 slots to replace it. x1 slots do a great job of that as is.

 

[ozicom]

Building a new PC is great but i have to use my previous parts in my PCs for a long time because it saves a lot of bucks. So putting PCI slots is great so I can use my PCI wi-fi card. Yea buying a PCIe wi-fi card is possible but if I can use my recent why should I do that? When I upgrade from 775 to 1150 I looked for a PCI slot 1150 and found one so I could buy more memory.

 

[Understated]

I just wanted to chime in on the use of motherboards like this one in question for a gaming rig. I used a very cheap b85 "gaming" motherboard from gigabyte that I got for about 30 dollars on sale for a gaming rig that I put together. Sure z97 had all the bells and whistles but the fact that the closest z97 motherboard in price was upwards of 80 dollars more made me want to give the b85 a try. I always told myself i would upgrade later if need be. I grabbed myself a 4690 (because i dont need a k sku if the board cant overclock), slapped it into the motherboard along with a gtx 970, an ssd for the boot drive and a 1tb hdd for games. Fast forward over a year and the system is chugging along no slower than a z97 system would've and I have never felt the need to upgrade. The lower quality audio codec isn't even that noticeable. I just handed the system down to my younger brother so we could both play battlefront together and he loves it. Its super snappy and doesn't slow down for anything he uses it for. I can honestly say I cant notice any differences between the b85 I handed down to him and the skylake z170 system i use as my daily driver now during daily use and normal gaming use. Sure my skylake system can drive faster m.2 drives and has usb 3.1 and all that jazz but my skylake system also ended up being about 600-700 dollars more. The gtx 980 and the 6700k i got is partially to blame but i digress. I now find an extreme amount of value in b85/b150 boards as a gaming system. Honestly the average gamer doesn't need anymore than what these motherboards offer. I said average gamer so don't come down on me with hate comments because I know there are those out there who sli and want to overclock on top of everything and add multiple x4 m.2 drives in raid 0 for super speeds but that falls outside of what I would co consider the "average gamer". I can vouch for these boards, they are honestly my preference now for building average gaming systems and was honestly considering buying one for my skylake system. These boards kick ass, just make sure to get a good quality one.