ASUS B150 PRO GAMING/AURA Motherboard Review

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When it comes to Skylake LGA1151 platform, the overwhelming bulk of our coverage has been focused on the Z170 chipset. The reasons for that are numerous, it is the only chipset on which overclocking is enabled, it supports the highest number of PCI-E lanes and PCI-E slots, it can handle more native USB 2.0/3.0 ports, and it also features RAID capabilities. These are all great selling points in favour of the Z170 PCH, but that single chip can cost motherboard manufacturers up to $47. That is a pretty hefty piece of the pie when you're trying to build a motherboard with a $100 to $130 price tag. This is where Intel's more mass-market chipsets come into play.

While there are numerous other consumer chipset options - Q170, H170, B150, H110 - it is the B150 PCH that has been most widely adopted by the motherboard industry as the lower-priced alternative to the Z170 models. While the end result is motherboards that cost less money, they also have less capabilities. As mentioned above, the biggest drawback is the total lack of overclocking, which is highlighted by the fact that even the memory speed is locked to DDR4-2133.

Another noteworthy restriction is the fact that the CPU's sixteen PCI-E 3.0 lanes cannot be split across multiple PCI-E slots, so they are all directed to the first PCI-E x16 slot that usually houses the graphics card. Not only does this preclude any multiple GPU configurations, but it means that the remaining PCI-E slots and high speed I/O interfaces must derive their PCI-E lanes from the B150 PCH. While the Z170 PCH has 20 of its own PCI-E lanes, the B150 only has 8, so there can be bandwidth constraints as you will see later on in this review.

Having said all of that, when you consider that most users don't overclock, and even fewer are interested in CrossFire or SLI, affordable B150 motherboards might just be what the doctor ordered. Furthermore, if we were to pick a single motherboard to make case for the B150 chipset, the ASUS B150 PRO GAMING/AURA that we are reviewing today would be it. This $130 USD / $170 CAD model is a direct descendant of the very well reviewed Z170 PRO GAMING, while also featuring the brand new AURA RGB LED lighting effects.

These RGB LEDs are integrated into the chipset cooler and top-right edge of the motherboard, and they can be controlled using the new Lighting Control utility. These lights can be adjusted to any number of different colours and customized to create cool lighting effects, like pulsating with the beat of your music, cycling through all the colours, fading in and out, flash on and off, or just statically displaying one colour. There are also solid red LEDs integrated into the audio isolation line, and they can also be set to a number of different effects.

When it comes to actual specs, this model features a 10-phase CPU power design, one physical PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot operating at x16, one physical PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot operating at x4, two PCI-E 3.0 x1 slots, two PCI slots, six SATA 6Gb/s ports, and one M.2 connector that is linked to a PCI-E 3.0 x2 interface. There are also high-speed USB 3.1 Type-A and Type-C ports, four USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, as well as headers for up six additional USB 2.0/3.0 ports.

This model also features a single gigabit LAN port powered by a Intel controller, and both DisplayPort and VGA video outputs for those who plan on making use of the CPU's integrated graphics. Onboard audio is provided by a SupremeFX implementation that is powered by a Realtek ALC1150 ten-channel codec and that is protected by its own EMI cover, Nichicon audio-grade capacitors, a headphone amplifier, and the whole sound subsystem is isolated from the rest of the system by an audio separation line on the PCB. Rounding things out, you will find small extras like four 4-pin PWM fan headers, a dedicated water pump header, a socketed BIOS chip, and a rich software suite that will be examining thoroughly.

The real question that begs answering is whether or not a $130 B150 board with a crazy number of features is a worthwhile investment when there are similarly priced Z170 alternatives that have overclocking and multi-card support.

 

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Packaging & Accessories

Packaging & Accessories

Now that we have gone over the B150 PRO GAMING/AURA features and specifications, it is time to examine the packaging and then crack open the box to take a look at the bundled accessories. Let's check it out:

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This motherboard features brand new packaging that has been created for these new AURA series models. The world AURA is slightly embossed, and its both metallic and iridescent, which provides a pretty nice visual effect. There is a new RGB logo that further highlights of this model's key features. ASUS have also included a 15-day premium account for the World of Warships massively multiplayer online game, as well as am exclusive camouflaged Diana cruiser warship.

The back of the box lists the specifications and highlighting a few of this product's unique features. The rear also reveals a few of this model's more notable features like the aforementioned AURA RGB lighting, the USB 3.1 connectivity, RAMCache, GameFirst networking technology, as well as the SupremeFX onboard audio. It also contains a basic specs list, and layouts pic of the motherboard and of the I/O panel.

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Once you open the packaging, there are two separate sections, the top half holds the motherboard in an anti-static bag and the bottom half contains the accessories, software and documentation, as you will see below.

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The B150 PRO GAMING/AURA comes with a fairly minimal accessories bundle, which consists of a user guide, driver and software DVD, ASUS sticker, rear I/O shield, four SATA 6Gb/s cables, a set of M.2 screws, a pack of cable ties, as well as some stickers that you can wrap around SATA cables to label individual connections.

We were disappointed to see that there was no Q-connector, which is a little module that helps connect the case wires to the front-panel header. We understand the need to exclude some things in the name of cost cutting, but this is one truly handy addition that probably only costs a few pennies to manufacture.

 

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A Closer Look at the B150 PRO GAMING/AURA

A Closer Look at the B150 PRO GAMING/AURA

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While the big three motherboard manufacturers all have black & red colour schemes for their 'Gaming' series motherboards, ASUS have kicked things up a notch with the B150 PRO GAMING/AURA. For starters, this model features a matte black PCB has been spruced up with the addition of some red trace lines coming out from the CPU and the chipset. These red lines are just painted on though, they aren't actually manufactured into the board like on the dual-color PCB that is exclusive to the higher-end Republic of Gamers (RoG) series. Another huge design element is obviously the new AURA lighting feature, which consists of a series of RGB LEDs that are integrated into the chipset cooler and top-right edge of the motherboard. These RGB LEDs can be adjusted to any number of different colours and customized to create cool lighting effects. Regrettably, the LEDs that light up the audio seperation line can only display the colour red, but they do have some adjustable effects as well.

This motherboard is based on the traditional full-size ATX form factor (30.5 cm x 24.4 cm / 12.0-in x 9.6-in), so there shouldn't be any issues whatsoever when it comes to installing this motherboard into any properly designed case. All the ports, headers, and connectors are properly located on the edge of the motherboard. We definitely like the placement of the M.2 connector, since many motherboards seem to have it placed far too close to the primary PCI-E x16. This is a problem because very high performance M.2 solid state drives have been known to throttle themselves when running too hot, so it is good idea to not place them directly under heat spewing graphics cards.

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Surprisingly, this motherboard features the same 10-phase DIGI+ VRM CPU power design found on many of the ASUS Z170 models, which is obviously more than ample since this motherboard does not support overclocking and thus will never be subject to particularly heavy loads.

Here you can get a better look at some of the red traces that ASUS have added to this model. As mentioned above, they are merely painted on and serve no function other than adding a little flair to the motherboard. If they had been illuminated stripes and part of the AURA feature, the aesthetic results would have been pretty spectacular.

Since this is a Gaming series motherboard, one of the nice little touches is the addition of a water pump header right next to the 4-pin PWM CPU fan header.

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This model features four DDR4 memory slots and supports up to 64GB of system memory, which is the hard-limit for Skylake processors. Regrettably, another hard-limit is that memory speed is locked to DDR4-2133 due to the B150 chipset. On the plus side, at least you won't need to spend much money on a memory kit.

While the 24-pin ATX power connector is in its usual spot, the top-right corner of the motherboard is of particular importance because it houses one of two AURA RGB lighting areas. That yellow line is a translucent part of the PCB that allows the light from the RGB LEDs to shine through. Please check out our AURA feature test for more information about this new feature.

To the left of the 24-pin ATX power connector is a USB 3.0 header that can be used to add another two USB 3.0 ports. It is supplied directly by the B150 chipset itself and thus should provide optimal transfer speeds.

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This motherboard features six SATA 6Gb/s ports, all of which are supplied by the B150 PCH. Regrettably, another B150 limitation is that lack of any sort of RAID support. While Intel Rapid Storage Technology is supported, Intel Smart Response Technology is not - another casualty in the struggle for chipset differentiation.

As we mentioned in the intro, the B150 PCH only features 8 PCI-E lanes, compared to 20 for the Z170, which has obviously caused a battle over how to split that PCI-E bandwidth. One of the casualties of this war is the M.2 connector, which does not have the full-speed PCI-E 3.0 x4 interface that we have grown accustomed to on Z170 motherboards. Instead, this M.2 connector has been limited to PCI-E 3.0 x2, which means that it has a maximum theoretical bandwidth limit of around 2GB/s. As you will see in our feature test, the actually limit is fair bit lower.

Another noteworthy limitation is that if you install a SATA-based M.2 SSD, SATA port 1 will be disabled.

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While the large chipset heatsink helps cool the low wattage B150 PCH, its true purpose is being the second half of the AURA lighting feature. There are RGB LEDs under the heatsink which can be set to any colour and adjusted to change shades to indicate CPU temperature, pulsate with the beat of your music, cycle through all the colours, fade in and out, flash on and off, or just statically display one colour.

 

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A Closer Look at the B150 PRO GAMING/AURA pt.2

A Closer Look at the B150 PRO GAMING/AURA pt.2

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The lower-right corner and the bottom edge of the motherboard is where you will find the single socketed BIOS chip, front panel header, a pointless CPU overvoltage header, temperature sensor header, clear CMOS jumper, and a standby power LED. There is also a ROG_EXT header which is were you plug in one of the cables that runs to the OC Panel accessory.

There is a TPM header, one of three four-pin PWM system headers, COM port, and the front panel audio header.

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One of the primary limitations of the B150 PCH is the fact that it only supports one graphics card. More specifically, it does not allow the CPU's sixteen PCI-E 3.0 lanes to be split across multiple PCI-E slots, so they are all directed to the first PCI-E x16 slot that usually houses the primary graphics card. While the B150 PRO GAMING/AURA does have a second mechnical PCI-E x16 slot is electronically limited to PCI-E 3.0 x4, and it derives its bandwidth from the chipset. Since the chipset only has 8 PCI-E lanes to spare, if you do install a PCI-E x4 expansion card in that secondary x16 slot it automatically disables both of the PCI-E x1 slots.

Since the Skylake platform does not natively support legacy PCI slots, ASUS have added an ASMedia ASM1083 PCI-E to PCI bridge chip to handle that duty.

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Since it is a gaming-oriented model, this motherboard features an above-average SupremeFX onboard audio implementation. While there is an EMI shield covering it, we know that it is based on the popular Realtek ALC1150 10-channel HD audio codec. Rounding out the onboard audio are Nichicon audio-grade capacitors and a Texas Instruments R4580 headphone amplifier, which supposedly has enough grunt to power 600 ohm cans. There is a isolation line surrounds the audio section of the PCB in order to preserve the signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio and thus ensure the highest possible sound quality. There are red LEDs placed all along the isolation line, and while we wish they were RGB LEDs to go along with the AURA feature, they are still controllable with three different effects.

Since this is a SupremeFX implementation it supports Sonic Radar II, which is a feature that places a small overlay in games and allows gamers to 'see' where sounds in the game environment are coming from in relation to your player.

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This B150 PRO GAMING/AURA model has good connectivity on its rear I/O panel. Starting from left to right, we have the combo keyboard/mouse PS/2 port, two USB 2.0 ports, VGA and HDMI video outputs, two USB 3.0 ports, USB 3.1 Type-A and USB 3.1 Type-C ports, one gigabit LAN port, two USB 3.0 ports, and the six audio jacks which include an S/PDIF output.

What's powering all these ports and buttons you ask? Well, starting from the top left, there is a Nuvoton NCT6793D Super I/O monitoring controller, Intel I219V ethernet controller that is protected by a LANGuard surge protector, ASMedia ASM1542 USB 3.1 Type-C controller, ASMedia ASM1142 USB 3.1 Type-A controller, ASMedia ASM1442K IC responsible for the HDMI output, and Realtek RTD2168 for the VGA output.

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Impressively, other than LEDs, there are no components mounted on the back side of the motherboard. The MOSFET heatsink is held in place by plastic push pins, while the chipset heatsink uses metal screws.

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Lastly, on the rear of the motherboard we also get a good look at some of the LEDs that are placed all along the PCB isolation line that surrounds the audio sub-system. There are similar lights - though of the RGB variety - placed under the translucent strip on the top-right edge of the motherboard.

 

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Hardware Installation

Hardware Installation

In the Hardware Installation section we examine how major components fit on the motherboard, and whether there are any serious issues that may affect installation and general functionality. Specifically, we are interested in determining whether there is adequate clearance in all critical areas.

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As mentioned in the previous section, this motherboard has a fairly crowded CPU socket area due to the proximity of several capacitors to the socket. Having said that, when installed in the East-West or North-South orientation, our Prolimatech Mega Shadow cooler and its numerous bits of mounting hardware had no issues physically clearing the capacitors or the MOSFET heatsinks. As a result, we believe that most large CPU heatsink and all-in-one liquid coolers should be easily installable.

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Unlike on most motherboards, we did not encounter any clearance issues between our standard memory modules and our large CPU cooler. The cooler's fan clips did not make contact with the nearest memory module, but obviously you will need to remove the clips and the fan in order to install or remove the RAM modules. When we swapped in very tall memory modules, there were clearance issues even in the farthest memory slots.

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Thanks to the expansion slot layout, there is a large gap between the clip-less Q-DIMM memory slots and the back of the graphics card, so there is no need to take out the GPU before installing/removing memory modules. The 24-pin ATX power connector and the 8-pin CPU power connector are both ideally placed, so that makes assembling and disassembling the system just a tad easier.

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Even though it only supports a single graphics card, the B150 PRO GAMING/AURA will hold two dual-slot graphics cards without issue. When your graphics card is installed in the first PCI-E x16 slot, it is easy to push the release clip because there is a good amount of room between the back of the graphics card and the heatsink.

If you have a dual-slot expansion card installed in the second PCI-E x16 slot, you will need to remove it before installing or removing any M.2 solid state drive.

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Installing an M.2 SSD, even one 110 millimeters long, is no problem on this motherboard. As mentioned above, if you have a dual-slot expansion card installed in the second PCI-E x16 slot, you will need to remove it before installing or removing any M.2 solid state drive.

The six 90-degree SATA ports are obviously accessible no matter how many graphics cards are installed.

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The Prolimatech Mega Shadow heatsink's large mounting bracket fit without issue, but it did come pretty close to one little solder point. This is the case on most motherboards, so nothing to worry about there.

 

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BIOS Rundown

BIOS Rundown

This new generation of motherboards carries forward ASUS' familiar UEFI bios layout. Although fundamentally similar to past versions, this latest implementation has obviously been tweaked with a bunch of new Skylake-oriented features. As we have come to expect from ASUS, this is a very smooth and responsive UEFI BIOS, incrementally better than anything we've experienced from other manufacturers. The UEFI BIOS is divided across two distinct modes. The EZ Mode is simplified and features a mouse-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) for basic tasks, while the Advanced Mode has all the settings, options, and features that you could ever want. From within the EZ Mode you can switch to the Advanced Mode by pressing F7, and vice-versa to get back to the EZ Mode.

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The EZ Mode makes pretty good use of the graphical user interface (GUI) and was designed to be used with a mouse. It obviously does not have all the functionality of the Advanced mode, but it is not meant to. It simply gives novice users an easy way to visualize and alter some of the most common settings. The Q-Fan Tuning feature can be found in both BIOS modes, but fundamentally it gives you full manual or preset-based control over the systems fans. The EZ Tuning Wizard can also be used as a very user-friendly way of setting up a RAID array.

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The My Favorites tab allows you to have all your most useful or most used settings in one place, so you no longer have to search through the whole bios to find what you need time and time again. My favorites used to come as a blank page, but now ASUS have included what it believes are the most used BIOS settings. You can obviously edit this selection, and add or remove any settings that you want.

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The next tab in the BIOS is the Main section, which displays the standard storage devices and some basic system information. This System Information section lists some rudimentary specification info, including the BIOS date & version, the type of processor and the amount of memory installed. You can also set the system language, and an administrator and/or individual user password.

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Next up is the Ai Tweaker section, which is where all the fun would happen...if this motherboard supported overclocking. Although the Ai Overclock Tuner setting offers XMP as an option, it doesn't actually work since this model's memory speed is locked to DDR4-2133. In fact, all the CPU Core Ratio, BCLK Frequency, and various DRAM settings are all useless on this motherboard.

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As its name suggests, the DRAM Timing Control section is where you will find all the memory-related settings. Within this section you can select and change all the memory settings, and each memory channel has its own section, from which you can alter the primary and secondary timings. It has just about every memory modifier that an enthusiast tweaker would need to fine-tune their modules. There's really an overabundance of options and it is quite impressive.

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The DIGI+ Power Control section has a whole slew of advanced power regulation settings for the CPU cores, CPU VTT and VCCSA (system agent/memory controller), and DRAM channels. This motherboard is setup well enough so that you should never actually have to tweak any of these settings though, unless you are really pushing the limits with phase-change or LN2 cooling. The exception to this is obviously Load-Line Calibration (LLC), which is a worthwhile feature that eliminates droopage on the CPU vCORE, and which we will take a closer look at in our Voltage Regulation section.

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The Internal CPU Power Management section is where you can enable or disable all the CPU-specific features like SpeedStep and Turbo Mode, as well as setting the Turbo limits. ASUS have really bolstered this section with an overwhelming array of CPU power tuning settings.

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Occupying the middle to bottom section of the Extreme Tweaker are the prodigious voltage options. As you would expect, all the key system voltages are present and accounted for, as far as bunch of other voltage options that we have frankly never even seen before. For some of the key voltages like the CPU Core voltage and the CPU Cache voltage, ASUS have allowed four separate entry modes. The Auto and Manual modes are self-evident, the Offset Mode allows you to specify how much higher (or lower) the voltage should be in reference to stock level, so something like +0.10V or +0.15V. The Adaptive Mode allows you to set both a base voltage and higher Turbo Mode voltage that is enabled under heavy system loads. This helps minimize the amount of voltage running through a processor when it's not under load.

Usually we would now say that we wish there were more drop-down menus in this section. Although can manually type in whatever you want, but that is not particularly useful when you don't know or don’t remember what the default voltages are. Thankfully, ASUS have thought about this, and they have included real-time voltage read outs next to all the key system voltages. This is an fantastic addition and we couldn't be happier to see it here.

 

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BIOS Rundown pt.2

BIOS Rundown pt.2

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The Advanced tab is where you can tweak countless settings and enable or disable all of the motherboard's components. The CPU Configuraton sub-menu is where you can manipulate all the CPU-specific features like the Thermal Monitor, Hyper-Threading, Virtualization, Enhanced SpeedStep, Turbo Mode, C-States, etc.

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The Advanced Tab is also where you can enable/disable or just find all the various settings and options for all the onboard devices like the audio, LAN, USB 3.0, SATA ports, etc. There is also an HDD/SSD Smart information section. As you can see, there is a bewildering and overwhelming array of settings and options here.

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The Monitor section contains the anti-surge setting, but is mostly dedicated to monitoring the various voltages, temperatures, and fan speeds. This whole section is really quite impressive, it has all the essential temperature and voltage readouts, as well as truly excellent and comprehensive fan control functionality.

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The Boot tab is essentially where you set storage device priority, select the boot drive, enable/disable the full screen logo, and ton of other boot settings that can help with the installation or troubleshooting of various OS installations.

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ASUS EZ Flash 3 is a built-in utility that greatly simplifies the BIOS updating process. You can easily update your BIOS from a ROM file located on your hard drive(s) or USB flash drive(s). It's quick, painless, and it takes the worry out of BIOS flashing.

The ASUS Overclocking Profile feature gives users the option to save and switch between BIOS profiles, for example an everyday profile and a benchmarking profile. Not only is this infinitely quicker than manually inserting every setting, but the profiles can be saved and shared among other B150 PRO GAMING/AURA owners.

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Before you save your settings and exit the BIOS, there is a handy window that lists the changes you made during this session. It's a well thought out and implemented idea. The new General Help pop-up that you can find in the top-right corner is very handy for those who can't remember all the new function key tasks.

 

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Included Software

Included Software

Ai Suite III​

The most important and all-encompassing utility in ASUS' impressive suite of software is the aptly named Ai Suite III. Whereas ASUS used to have a handful of standalone apps for different functions, many were consolidated under the Ai Suite moniker back in 2011. This system management utility is the hub from which you can monitor system clock speeds, voltages, temperatures, and fan rotation all from within Windows. Although it's basic UI has been established for a while, ASUS regularly adds to the capabilities to this utility, so let's check it out.

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There are six main sections that are the focus of the Ai Suite III utility, and they are all linked to the Dual Intelligent Processors 5. As a refresher, DIP5 refers to two co-processors - the TurboV Processing Unit (TPU) and the Energy Processing Unit (EPU) - that are tasked with for optimizing the system with a focus on either better performance and improved energy efficiency.

There is also the Energy Processing Unit (EPU) power saving or performance profiles, Fan Xpert 3 fan speed optimization status, DIGI+ VRM optimization, awesome new Turbo App functionality, and some display-only information regarding TurboV Processing Unit (TPU). We'll go into it in-depth below.

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On the left hand side of the Ai Suite utility is an arrow that activates a pop-out menu when clicked. Here you will find features like Ai Charger+ and USB 3.1 Boost. When enabled, USB 3.0 Boost implements the UAS Protocol (UASP) USB protocol that greatly enhances speeds while also lowering CPU utilization. The EZ Update tool allows users to update their motherboard's BIOS either directly from the internet or from a downloaded file.

System Information just contains a bunch of basic system information regarding your CPU, motherboard or RAM. You can also find you can find your serial number, BIOS version, etc.

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At the bottom is a static strip that displays information on CPU and DRAM frequency, real-time voltage and temperatures measurements, as well as CPU and case fans speeds. You can also set safe thresholds for voltages, temperatures and fan speeds as well as setting alerts to warn you of any serious fluctuations. It is essentially a replacement for the Probe II utility.

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The EPU (Energy Processing Unit) tab is you will be able to fine-tune the various selection of power saving or performance profiles. For those who don't want to manually adjust these settings there is also an EPU Calibration feature that will automatically set the best possible settings for your particular system. This is a versatile feature for those who truly care about maximizing energy savings.

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The DIGI+ Power Control tab is where you will find the power options for the CPU, System Agent/Memory Controller, and RAM. There are adjustable settings for load-line calibration, current capability, voltage frequency, and phase control. There are different power controls for each memory channel since they are independently powered.

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The Fan Xpert 3 tab is, as you might expect, where you can fully manage and optimize your CPU and system fans. While there are now a series of four fan presets (Silent/Standard/Turbo/Full Speed), you can also manually adjust the full fan speed curve to your preferences, or simply use the fully automated Fan Tuning feature.

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PC Cleaner is a more addition to the Ai Suite, and as its name suggests it helps clear out any of the useless files that take up room on your storage device(s). In our case, it cleaned up a little over 2.4GB of extraneous data, so clearly it is a very capable utility.

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The Push Notice feature can used to send alerts when system voltage, temperatures, or fan speeds deviate from your normal levels. It can also be used to notify when the system is restarted, shutdown, or put to sleep.

 

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Included Software pt.2

Included Software pt.2

Lighting Control

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The RGB LEDs that are integrated into the chipset cooler and top-right edge of the motherboard can be controlled using the new Lighting Control utility. The light can be adjusted to any number of different colours and customized to create cool lighting effects. The presets can cause the LEDs to change shades to indicate CPU temperature, pulsate with the beat of your music, cycle through all the colours, fade in and out, flash on and off, or just statically display one colour.

ASUS CPU-Z

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ASUS CPU-Z is a special edition of CPU-Z especially with a special colour scheme and the ASUS logo. This edition is found on the included software DVD or the ASUS website, but it is not yet available for download from CPUID.com, though you can download the ROG CPU-Z version.

GameFirst III

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GameFirst III is a utility designed to help reduce latency courtesy of cFosSpeed traffic-shapping technology. The first step is running a speed test and choosing which traffic profile best suits your internet needs. This utility provides users with a lot of control and monitoring capabilities over every application that is accessing the network. It displays CPU usage, NPU usage, ICMP and UDP average ping, and the network utilization of every system process and program. This tool also allows you give priority to certain applications, and throttle or block others to free network resources for other applications. It is your one-stop tool for monitoring and controlling all network traffic.

Sonic Radar II

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The idea behind Sonic Radar II is simple enough, once configured in the above utility, it is basically a radar overlay that shows the positional location that sound is coming from in games. It is essentially a gaming aid, or a really useful tool for those who are hard of hearing or those who just can't have sound enabled in a given scenario (gaming at work anyone?).

RAMCache

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The B150 PRO Gaming/Aura also comes with the very simple RAMCache utility. For those not familiar with this concept, a RAMCache utilizes a portion of your RAM in order to cache your system's most commonly accessed data. Since the read, write and latency performance of RAM is significantly faster than any conventional storage device, the use of a RAMCache can definitely speed up certain tasks. Using this utility is as simple as selecting the storage device that you want to dedicate a cache to, and then selecting the amount of system memory to allocate to the RAMCache.

 

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Test Setups & Methodology

Test Setups & Methodology

For this review, we are going to be testing the performance of the B150 PRO GAMING/AURA at stock settings...and that's it. This motherboard - due to its B150 chipset - doesn't support any type of overclocking, so we can't touch the core frequency, the cache frequency, and even the memory speed is locked at DDR4-2133. As a result, this motherboard's stock performance versus that of the higher-end Maximus VIII Extreme. The components and software are the same across both configurations, and every option in the BIOS was at its default setting.

Intel Core i7 LGA1151 DDR4 Test Setup​

For all of the benchmarks, appropriate lengths are taken to ensure an equal comparison through methodical setup, installation, and testing. The following outlines our testing methodology:

A) Windows is installed using a full format.

B) Chipset drivers and accessory hardware drivers (audio, network, GPU) are installed.

C)To ensure consistent results, a few tweaks are applied to Windows 7 and the NVIDIA control panel:

• UAC – Disabled
• Indexing – Disabled
• Superfetch – Disabled
• System Protection/Restore – Disabled
• Problem & Error Reporting – Disabled
• Remote Desktop/Assistance - Disabled
• Windows Security Center Alerts – Disabled
• Windows Defender – Disabled
• Screensaver – Disabled
• Power Plan – High Performance
• V-Sync – Off

D) All available Windows updates are then installed.

E) All programs are installed and then updated, followed by a defragment.

F) Benchmarks are each run three to eight times, and unless otherwise stated, the results are then averaged.


Here is a full list of the applications that we utilized in our benchmarking suite:

• 3DMark Vantage Professional Edition v1.1.3
• 3DMark11 Professional Edition v1.0.132.0
• 3DMark 2013 Professional Edition v1.5.915
• AIDA64 Extreme Edition v5.50.3600
• Cinebench R15 64-bit
• FAHBench 1.2.0
• Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Benchmark
• Grand Theft Auto V
• HEVC Decode Benchmark (Cobra) v1.61
• LuxMark v3.0
• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
• PCMark 8
• SuperPi Mod v1.9 WP
• Sisoft Sandra 2015.SP3 20.28
• Valve Particle Simulation Benchmark v1.0.0.0
• WinRAR x64 5.30 beta 6
• wPRIME version v2.10
• X3: Terran Conflict Demo v1.0

That is about all you need to know methodology wise, so let's get to the good stuff!