Not everyone can afford a top of the line motherboard. It’s a fact of life. For those that need something reliable that doesn’t bear a massive price tag, there are more than a few options that eschew bells and whistles and deliver exactly wwhat is needed. Some of them even have a few added extras thrown in to spice things up, like Asus’ B150 Pro Gaming / Aura motherboard. It doesn’t make use of the high-end Z170 Intel chipset, but the B150 still falls into the 6th generation “Skylake” fold that Intel released in 2015.
The B150 is a very capable chipset indeed, and offers a wide variety of improvements over the previous generation. And while the B150 Pro Gaming / Aura may not sport a Z170 chipset, it certainly does the job.
Part of its very solid performance stems from the fact that it is compatible with DDR4 RAM. That’s also part of the problem with this particular generation – upgrading a motherboard now requires not only a new CPU, but new memory as well. It’s a worthwhile expense when you see the performance, and the B150 makes for a decent, moderate compromise on what could be a very expensive exercise.
As far as special features go, the B150 Pro Gaming / Aura offers a customisable lighting effect that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional. It can be set to do cool things like pulse in time to music, sure, but the most useful application is a colour change system that indicated internal temperature. Heat conscious users could find this kind of utility extremely useful, if they build their PC into a windowed case.
In keeping with its gaming focus, the B150 Pro Gaming / Aura offers a number of useful utilities. GameFirst technology allows customisable traffic prioritisation, while SupremeFX offers excellent audio quality. And then, of course, there’s the somewhat controversial Sonic Radar II overlay that allows the user to pinpoint enemies based on in-game sounds.
And for those worried about longevity and safety, numerous protection systems have been built in, including ESD guards, overcurrent protection and high-durability components.
When you get right down to it, the B150 Pro Gaming / Aura may not be a member of the popular, high-end Maximus line from Asus, but it certainly does hold its own against similarly classed products from competitors. It offers reliable performance and just enough on-board “bling” to be attractive, while not compromising important elements like speed and compatibility with the latest hardware. Those that want a reliable and effective motherboard to form a stable backbone for an almost completely new PC system would do well to look into the B150 Pro Gaming / Aura.
This is a very decent and capable motherboard, not brimming with special features but still providing exactly what is needed.