Asus TUF B450-PRO GAMING (90MB10C0-M0EAY0)
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2018 full-length ATX gaming motherboard with AMD AM4 socket and Asus Aura Sync lighting. Positioned as a mid-range model in the popular Asus The Ultimate Force series of gaming products, designed for those who demand maximum reliability and durability at a reasonable price. It features an improved subsystem for interacting with RAM and full support for 4-, 6-, 8-, 12- and 16-core AMD Ryzen 3/5/7/9 processors with the Matisse/Matisse Refresh core.
It will be a good choice for users who want a solid foundation for a versatile home PC, a powerful multifunctional office PC or an inexpensive workstation. Supports AMD processors with Zen and Zen2 microarchitecture. The Asus TUF B450-PRO GAMING motherboard is equipped with a reinforced 10-phase CPU VRM power supply subsystem, cooled by additional aluminium radiators. Can be used for moderate overclocking experiments (without extreme increase in supply voltages). With the ability to install four DDR4 modules, the board supports up to 64 GB of RAM, which is more than enough for everyday tasks, gaming and professional software. For network communications, there is a Realtek RTL8111H controller. Two M.2 ports can be used to install high-speed SSD drives.
Enhanced Reliability
ASUS has taken a liking to the B450 chipset and has managed to release some interesting gaming boards from the ROG series on it. In contrast to them, the new board belongs to the Asus TUF series, the distinctive feature of which is increased reliability.
Improvements to all board components
Looking at the card under a microscope, the increased reliability comes from more transistors in the power subsystem, a modified VRM heatsink, and improved chokes. The reinforced PCI-E 16x slot is difficult to include in this list, since it is found in every second board based on the B450 chipset with a price tag above $120. In addition, Asus promises many small improvements to the batteries, cooling system, and in general, virtually all important components of the board.
Top audio codec
In terms of equipment, this is a fairly standard mid-range board with 4 DDR4 slots, the ability to install two video cards, USB 3.1 gen2 support, a modern set of video outputs and two M.2 slots for installing fast SSD drives. The last one is a bit strange, since boards based on the B450 chip usually have two M.2 connectors. The number of additional features of the board is minimized, its main task is to drive reliably. We can only note an improved version of the Realtek ALC887 codec and backlight synchronization using the Asus Aura Sync utility.
Only works with Ryzen
Of the unsuccessful engineering decisions, it is worth highlighting the inconvenient connection of multi-channel acoustics and reduced support for CPUs: the board supports AMD Ryzen chips of the first or second generation, but will not work with AMD A and Athlon processors for Socket AM4.
