ASUS B150 PRO GAMING/AURA (LGA1151) Review

Software Overview

ASUS’ software suite offers a wide array of useful utilities to determine system health, and fine tune performance from the desktop. The Auto-Diagnostic Help tool can create a system backup to protect your data, and connect you to ASUS’ support line in case any stability problems occur. Additionally, it analyses integral aspects of your hardware to gauge if anything is malfunctioning.

CPU-Z is one of the most important monitoring utilities out there to view CPU voltages, memory timings, and now even has an integrated stress test. Here we can see ASUS has applied a custom skin to make it a more suitable match with the motherboard’s theme.

The WebStorage application is used to access data on a wide range of devices including mobile, tablet, and PC.

Exclusive to this particular motherboard is the AURA RGB illumination control which allows you to select from a number of visual effects and custom colours. The most intriguing feature is the ability to set RGB lighting based on CPU temperatures.

The software contains a section to adjust the audio LED’s behaviour to suit your personal preferences.

ASUS’ PC Diagnostics is designed to outline technical information about a user’s system. This ranges from the motherboard’s onboard networking chip to the current storage configuration.

Another great addition is the RAMCache which offsets free memory to a master storage device and minimizes executing latency as well as data read-in time. The end result is greatly improved performance and a snappier feel when loading games.

GameFirst III is a network prioritization utility which assigns top priority to game-data packets, allocating them more bandwidth to ensure the best online-gaming experience and clear, stutter-free online team-chat.

ASUS Dual Intelligent Processors 5 combines TPU, EPU, DIGI+ Power Control, Fan Xpert 3, and Turbo App functions to push the system’s performance to its optimal potential. It automatically balances the system’s performance, power saving, and fan settings via the user-friendly AI Suite 3 utility.

Even though the lack of overclocking inhibits your options here somewhat, there’s still enough value in the live monitoring and fan control to make an install worthwhile.

I have to commend ASUS for presenting the fan curves in such a slick and easy to use interface. This means it’s so easy to understand the relationship between RPM values and system temperatures.

If you still find this slightly overwhelming, the software can do all the hard work and display a detailed Tuning Report. This gauges the capacities of your cooling apparatus and finds the perfect balance between audible noise and temperatures.

Here we can see the massive selection of tools embedded into the software suite. There’s more than enough applications included to please even the most demanding of users.