ASUS B150 PRO GAMING/AURA (LGA1151) Review

A Closer Look

Even though the B150 PRO GAMING/AURA is targeted towards affordability, it still manages to evoke a premium feel and adopts one of the best-looking designs I’ve seen in some time. The vivid red heatsink colour and black accents contrasts superbly and looks like the perfect combination. This is helped by the subtle PRO GAMING branding which showcases the motherboard’s gaming theme without detracting too much from the chipset’s business roots. Not only that, the PCB is awash with very unusual red lines and creates such an identifiable appearance which separates the motherboard from anything else out there on the market. Honestly, I strongly believe ASUS has created a visual masterpiece and deserves a lot of credit for this innovative design.

Here we can see the conveniently placed 4-pin fan headers to easily connect a water cooling pump and set of fans with a PWM splitter. This reduces clutter and helps the end-user to build a cleaner and more professional looking system. The four DIMMs feature DRAM overcurrent protection which protects against short-circuit damage via onboard resettable fuses and extends the motherboard’s longevity. From this image, it’s clear how the PCB led lighting was implemented, and there’s also the standard 24-pin power and front USB connector in its optimal position.

The area surrounding the CPU socket is extremely clean which makes it so simple to attach large air coolers, or water cooling apparatus with a heavy mounting pressure. Also notice, the 10K capacitors, LAN Guard which eliminates EMI, and impressive power delivery.

As with any PRO GAMING product from ASUS, the audio circuitry is top-notch and based on Realtek’s ALC1150 chipset. This section contains an EMI cover to preserve the audio signal, and illumination shielding to eliminate analog interference and create a striking finish. ASUS opted for premium Nichicon audio capacitors which produce a crisp, warm sound and even integrated a 300 ohms headphone amplifier to properly drive high impedance audio equipment.

On another note, the motherboard’s expansion layout features two PCIe x16 slots, two PCIe x1 and two PCI slots to support hardware from a bygone era.

Connectivity-wise, you can choose from six SATA3 6 Gb/s ports and a single M.2 socket 3 which opts for a PCIe x2 configuration.

On the rear I/O, there is a PS/2 connector, two USB 2.0 ports, D-SUB, HDMI, four USB 3.0, USB 3.1 Type-A, USB 3.1 Type-C, RJ45, 5 audio jacks and an optical S/PDIF out.