Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in

Asus Intros Gamer Line With B85-Pro Gamer Motherboard

By - Source: Tom's Hardware US | B 23 comments

Asus has announced its B85-Pro Gamer motherboard.

Asus has announced a new motherboard – the B85-Pro Gamer. This motherboard is set to make part of the company's new 'Gamer' lineup of products.

The motherboard features the LGA 1150 socket and is built with the B85 chipset. It can thus swallow a number of Intel Haswell processors. The CPU socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, which will allow you to install up to 32 GB of DDR3 memory. Do remember though, because the board is based on a B-series chipset, it's likely that you won't be able to overclock your CPU if you get a K-series processor.

Regarding expansion, users will find two PCIe x16 ports, one of which operates with only four lanes. Beside this, there are two PCIe 1x ports along with three legacy PCI ports.

The motherboard's PCB is built on a red and black theme, which should match a lot of complimenting gaming hardware.

Rear I/O is handled by a pair of PS/2 ports, an HDMI port, a DVI port, a VGA port, four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet (Intel-made), along with a 7.1 channel analog HD audio. The audio on this motherboard is driven by Asus' SupremeFX audio circuitry, meaning you'll get pretty decent sound from the motherboard itself, and also won't need a dedicated headphone amp, as that's also built in for up to 300 Ω headphones.

At the time of writing there was no word on pricing or availability, though we can expect for this to be a relatively affordable board.

Discuss
Ask a Category Expert

Create a new thread in the News comments forum about this subject

Example: Notebook, Android, SSD hard drive

This thread is closed for comments
  • 1 Hide
    TheinsanegamerN , March 28, 2014 11:48 AM
    a gaming motherboard that cant overclock? what is next, a eatx motherboard with only pcie 1.0 slots? most gamers, if they are spending big bucks, would probably rather go for the k series for overclocking.....
  • 0 Hide
    Dan Beck , March 28, 2014 12:18 PM
    You know, there's a few days left till april!
  • 0 Hide
    Morbus , March 28, 2014 12:30 PM
    If this is like 80USD, then it kind of justifies the purchase, but I'd still go for a H-series motherboard, at that price-range.
  • Display all 23 comments.
  • 2 Hide
    jimmysmitty , March 28, 2014 12:42 PM
    So it is like the poor mans RoG?
  • 0 Hide
    pills161 , March 28, 2014 2:10 PM
    Quote:
    So it is like the poor mans RoG?
    I was going to say the same thing, looks similar to the Hero sans the overclocking, but who buys a "gamer" board just to run everything at stock?
  • 0 Hide
    lunyone , March 28, 2014 2:15 PM
    Sell it for $80 or less and you have a winner! We should call it the "WannaBE" gaming Mobo "I think it can, I think it can, etc.". Besides no OC'ing, the theme is the same as the ROG style, but with limited options.
  • -1 Hide
    ferooxidan , March 28, 2014 3:09 PM
    this is how to sell things a lil bit pricier. Just like MSI
  • -1 Hide
    KosherGrimace , March 28, 2014 3:10 PM
    This would've been acceptable for a smaller form factor, but not ATX. Not enough value for hardware real estate.
  • 0 Hide
    tinmann , March 28, 2014 5:22 PM
    The two PCIe x16 ports, one of which operates with only four lanes is the real deal breaker for me.
  • 5 Hide
    amk-aka-Phantom , March 28, 2014 9:32 PM
    Quote:
    a gaming motherboard that cant overclock? what is next, a eatx motherboard with only pcie 1.0 slots? most gamers, if they are spending big bucks, would probably rather go for the k series for overclocking.....
    Cut them some slack. Overclocking is overrated, mostly a marketing gimmick these days. No real performance game in games between running your CPU at 3 or 4 GHz. What matters is GPU, RAM and SSD. As long as you've got a decent i5, you're set and can forget about the whole OC BS and save money by getting non-OC-capable chipsets and CPUs.
  • 0 Hide
    Lutfij , March 28, 2014 11:01 PM
    Hang on a minute!
    Quote:
    it's likely that you won't be able to overclock your CPU if you get a K-series processor

    Does anyone remember the Asrock Fatal1ty B85 Killer board? That was capable of overclocking. There's an overview video on Teksyndicate by Wendell and in it he mentions that you can overclock on it.

    If you need to take a closer look,
    https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/B85PRO_GAMER/

    With that being said, what good will a company be by digging its own grave? The board clearly has VRM circuitry and heatsinks meant for overclocking. Furthermore there are budget builders, aside from boutique builders, who would like a piece of the action.

    Lastly;
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-gwNLEibvo
    ^ go down to 3:50 and you can check out the BIOS features.
  • 0 Hide
    de5_Roy , March 29, 2014 2:50 AM
    ^^ iirc gigabyte had a g1.sniper b5 mobo with b85 chipset that could o.c. the cpu.
    http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_g1_sniper_b5_review,1.html
    unless intel has forced motherboard vendors to lock cpu o.c. in all non-z chipset motherboards, vendors should be able to enable cpu o.c. as they choose.
  • 0 Hide
    rolli59 , March 29, 2014 6:31 AM
    Jumping on the marketing bandwagon with MSI putting gamer in the name for higher sales.I wonder how many people today Know where Fatal1ty name came from that has been used by many companies for marketing?
  • 0 Hide
    dragonfang18 , March 29, 2014 11:06 AM
    According to this reviewer it is OC-able http://www.pc-help.cz/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=129279&start=12#p1015698
  • 0 Hide
    lp231 , March 29, 2014 2:18 PM
    The B85 can be OC, but it's not officially supported by Intel. Motherboards that can are done by the board maker themselves. It's like AMD pre-FX CPUs, AMD does not officially unlocking, but that hasn't stop board makers from finding a way to unlock it via the bios. Being Asus, I doubt this board will sell for less than $100, probably around $120-$150.If it's less than $100, then it's a okay board just for the sake of having the word "gaming" in it. But if it's at $150, you can get a well featured Asus non ROG Z87 board.Also this board isn't part of their ROG line up. Their ROG boards never uses chipset numbering as their names.CrossHair = AMDMaximus = Intel mainstreamRampage = Intel high-end
  • 1 Hide
    jasonelmore , March 30, 2014 7:47 PM
    Quote:
    a gaming motherboard that cant overclock? what is next, a eatx motherboard with only pcie 1.0 slots? most gamers, if they are spending big bucks, would probably rather go for the k series for overclocking.....
    Overclocking the CPU gives very minimal gains these days. Consider this, Mantle and DX12 are all pushing low level support, reducing the need for a fast CPU. Besides, today's i5's (non K versions) are 3.4 Ghz, 3.9 Turbo, which is pretty damn fast in itself.Overclocking boards are for the enthusiast and competitor. As long as it has SLI Support and a ton of SATA6, USB 3.0, and Wifi built in, then gamers are happy.
  • 1 Hide
    AGTDenton , March 31, 2014 3:06 AM
    All those slating it, this is perfect when a friend asks you for a good system who doesn't know much about computers and is unlikely to want to overclock. I often build for friends and this is perfect when they don't want/need the best.Its a great looking board and one that fits this bracket nicely. I can see this board being attractive to the independent system builders.So continue to slate if you can't think of a use.
  • 0 Hide
    Lutfij , March 31, 2014 4:30 AM
    ^ This, soon enough after a build you'll understand that they will want a piece of the action...and sure enough a small bump in frequency usually ends up satisfying them.
  • 0 Hide
    J_E_D_70 , March 31, 2014 7:10 AM
    Don't need more clocks? Depends on the game - if you're playing BF4 you certainly need an overclocked CPU to get the most out of it. A stock 3570 will stay pegged at 100% on all four cores on a large multiplayer map. If you are stuck at 100% there are tasks in a wait state and things are being held up. I'm at 4.2GHz on four cores because that's what it takes to get any headroom on a 3570K. On the other hand, if you run a 3770 it makes use of the hyperthreading and will hang around 60% utilization. Four cores is coming up on being insufficient faster than I would have expected.
  • 0 Hide
    lp231 , March 31, 2014 10:09 AM
    Quote:
    All those slating it, this is perfect when a friend asks you for a good system who doesn't know much about computers and is unlikely to want to overclock. I often build for friends and this is perfect when they don't want/need the best.Its a great looking board and one that fits this bracket nicely. I can see this board being attractive to the independent system builders.So continue to slate if you can't think of a use.


    If your building a gaming system for your friend, he might ask you the difference and also ask the same question to his other friends as well who also happens to know a thing or two about computers, but these so called "experts" will most likely think all "gaming" computers must have top of the line parts. Like some of us here, who thinks that a "gaming computer" must have a K series CPU.
    It's better off to tell them the difference and the price it might cost for each build. If they're willing to spend a bit more then get the better board. If they don't plan to OC then this board is a good choice, but if they're on a tight budget and would like OC in the future, then find them a decent Z87 board so they can practice on it.
    You don't want to be in a position where you build for a friend, he asked others and they say your build is not good, and your friend thinks you build him a crap system.
Display more comments