With the announcement of Intel's 100 series chipsets, OEMs are hard at work rolling out new motherboards for the LGA 1151 platform. Asus announced a total of 10 of these boards, which will fall into its Gaming Pro and Signature product lines.
In the Signature product line, Asus pushed out a total of eight boards, designed for durability and long-term use. Asus utilizes its 5X Protection II technology on these boards, and has claimed to use the finest components to provide long-term durability. It also included LANGuard, a hardware-level of protection against EMI and a claimed 2.5 times greater tolerance against power surges.
All of the motherboards in the Signature line also take advantage of a Digi+ power design, which is more efficient and gives better control than traditional analog power designs. Although these boards lack support for the USB 3.1 Gen 2 standard, some boards do feature a Type-C interface using the USB 3.1 Gen 1 protocol. Only one of the five motherboards in the Signature line that has a Type-C interface utilizes the USB 3.1 Gen 2 protocol with 10 Gbps data rates.
As these boards aren't targeted at the enthusiast community, Asus opted to use the DDR3 standard on the majority of these motherboards. As a relatively new memory standard, DDR4 is considerably more expensive than older DDR3 memory. Using DDR3 will reduce the overall cost of a system, but will also reduce system performance -- though how much performance you'll miss out on has yet to be determined.
| Header Cell - Column 0 | H170-PRO | H170M-PLUS | H170I-PLUSD3 | Q170M-C |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel LGA 1151 for 6th-gen Intel Core i7 / i5 / i3 / Pentium / Celeron processors | |||
| Chipset | Intel H170 Express | Intel Q170 Express | ||
| Memory | 4x DIMM, max. 64 GB DDR4, 2133 MHz | 4x DIMM, max. 64 GB DDR4, 2133 MHz | 2x DIMM, max. 32 GB DDR3, 1600 MHz | 4x DIMM, max. 64 GB DDR4, 2133 MHz |
| PCIe x16 Slots | 1x PCIe3.0/2.0 x16 1x PCIe3.0 x16 (x4) | 1x PCIe3.0/2.0 x16 1x PCIe3.0 x16 (x4) | 1x PCIe3.0 x16 | 1x PCIe3.0 x16 |
| Output Support | HDMI, DVI, VGA | HDMI, DVI, VGA | DP, HDMI, DVI, VGA | DP, HDMI, DVI, VGA |
| Audio | Realtek ALC887with ASUS audio features | Realtek ALC887with ASUS audio features | Realtek ALC887 | Realtek ALC887 |
| Gigabit LAN | 1 (Realtek) | 1 (Intel) | 1 (Intel) | Intel vPro |
| SATA Express | 1 | 1 | 1 | N/A |
| SATA | 6x SATA 6 Gbit/s | 6x SATA 6 Gbit/s | 4x SATA 6 Gbit/s | 6x SATA 6 Gbit/s |
| M.2 | 1 (PCIe 3.0 x4) up to 2280 | 1 (PCIe 3.0 x4) up to 2280 | 1 (both PCIe and SATA modes) up to 2280 | N/A |
| Wi-Fi | N/A | N/A | 2x2 dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2.4/5 GHz) | N/A |
| USB | 1x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C 6x USB 3.0 Type-A 6x USB 2.0 | 1x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C 6x USB 3.0 Type-A 6x USB 2.0 | 8x USB 3.0 4x USB 2.0 | 10x USB 3.0 4x USB 2.0 |
| U.2 Support | Compatible with Hyper Kit(purchased separately) | Compatible with Hyper Kit(purchased separately) | N | N |
| RAID | Y | Y | N | Y |
| Header Cell - Column 0 | B150-PROD3 | B150M-PLUSD3 | H110M-PLUSD3 | H110I-PLUSD3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel LGA 1151 for 6th-gen Intel Core i7/ i5 / i3 / Pentium / Celeron processors | |||
| Chipset | Intel B150 Express | Intel H110 Express | ||
| Memory | 4x DIMM, max. 64 GB DDR3, 1866(OC) MHz | 4x DIMM, max. 64 GB DDR3, 1866(OC) MHz | 2x DIMM, max. 32 GB DDR3, 1866(OC) MHz | 2x DIMM, max. 32 GB DDR3, 1600 MHz |
| PCIe x16 Slots | 1x PCIe3.0/2.0 x16 1x PCIe3.0 x16 (x4) | 1x PCIe3.0/2.0 x16 1x PCIe3.0 x16 (x4) | 1x PCIe3.0/2.0 x16 | 1x PCIe3.0 x16 |
| Output Support | HDMI, DVI, VAG | HDMI, DVI, VGA | HDMI, DVI, VGA | HDMI, DVI, VGA |
| Audio | Realtek ALC887 with ASUS audio features | Realtek ALC887 with ASUS audio features | Realtek ALC887 | Realtek ALC887 |
| Gigabit LAN | 1 (Realtek) | 1 (Realtek) | 1 (Realtek) | 1 (Realtek) |
| SATA Express | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| SATA | 6x SATA 6 Gbit/s | 6x SATA 6 Gbit/s | 4x SATA 6 Gbit/s | 4x SATA 6 Gbit/s |
| M.2 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Wi-Fi | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| USB | 1x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C 4x USB 3.0 Type-A 6x USB 2.0 | 1x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C 5x USB 3.0 Type-A 6x USB 2.0 | 2x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A 4x USB 3.0 | 4x USB 3.0 6x USB 2.0 |
| U.2 Support | N/A | N/A | N/A | N |
| RAID | N | N | N | N |
Asus announced just two motherboards in the enthusiast-oriented Pro Gaming product line. These motherboards are based on the H170 and B150 chipsets, and as such lack overclocking support.
The boards do have many features that you would expect to find on gaming motherboards, such as Asus's proprietary SupremeFX audio technology in conjunction with a Realtek ALC1150 codec. Both motherboards also support two USB 3.1 Gen 2 enabled ports, and both also utilize the faster DDR4 memory standard.
These motherboards only have two major differences between them. The H170 Pro Gaming board supports a single SATA Express connection and higher clocked DDR4 memory, while the B150 Pro Gaming D3 lacks SATA Express and is rated for slightly slower DDR4 RAM.
| H170 PRO GAMING | B150 PRO GAMINGD3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Chipset | Intel H170 Express | Intel B150 Express |
| Memory | 4xDIMM, max. 64 GB DDR4, 2133 MHz | 4xDIMM, max. 64 GB DDR3, 1866(OC) MHz |
| PCIe x16 Slots | 1x PCIe3.0 x16 1x PCIe3.0 x16 (x4) | 1x PCIe3.0 x16 1x PCIe3.0 x16 (x4) |
| Output Support | DP, HDMI, DVI, VGA | HDMI, VGA |
| Audio | SupremeFX Realtek ALC1150 | SupremeFX Realtek ALC1150 |
| Gigabit LAN | 1 (Intel) | 1 (Intel) |
| SATA Express | 1 | N/A |
| SATA | 4x SATA 6 Gbit/s | 6x SATA 6 Gbit/s |
| M.2 | 1 (both PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA modes) up to 22110 | 1 (both PCIe and SATA modes) up to 22110 |
| Wi-Fi | N/A | N/A |
| USB | 1x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A1x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C 6x USB 3.0 | 1x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A 1x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C 6x USB 3.0 |
| U.2 Support | Compatible with Hyper Kit (purchased separately) | Compatible with Hyper Kit (purchased separately) |
| RAID | N/A | N/A |
There is currently no word on pricing or release date for any of these systems.
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