Friday, February 26th 2016
MSI Announces B150M Gaming Pro Motherboard
MSI, world leading in gaming hardware design, is heartened to announce a new M-ATX GAMING motherboard, the B150M GAMING PRO. This new Micro-ATX motherboard is based on the Intel B150 chipset supporting 6th Gen Intel Core processors for LGA1151, and is designed for gamers looking for a small gaming PC while getting the best gaming features & performance. DDR4 Boost technology is available, providing maximum performance and stability while also offering improved memory compatibility. Audio Boost and GAMING LAN ensure you have upper hand on your enemies on the battlefield, ready to finish on top. But there's more... For a limited time, with the new B150M GAMING PRO you get the great and nimble MSI DS B1 GAMING mouse for free.
By fully isolating the memory circuitry from other components, DDR4 Boost ensures the purest possible memory signal for maximum performance and stability. Get ready to crush your enemies on the battlefield with MSI GAMING LAN, featuring carefully selected components to ensure the best online gaming experience without lag. With optimized traffic prioritization and low latency, MSI GAMING LAN Manager automatically classifies and prioritizes the latency-sensitive applications for online games. The LED illuminated LAN connector features 15KV anti-surge protection for safety.The best audio solution for gamers with isolated audio PCB and high quality audio caps. MSI AUDIO BOOST rewards your ears with studio grade sound quality.
By fully isolating the memory circuitry from other components, DDR4 Boost ensures the purest possible memory signal for maximum performance and stability. Get ready to crush your enemies on the battlefield with MSI GAMING LAN, featuring carefully selected components to ensure the best online gaming experience without lag. With optimized traffic prioritization and low latency, MSI GAMING LAN Manager automatically classifies and prioritizes the latency-sensitive applications for online games. The LED illuminated LAN connector features 15KV anti-surge protection for safety.The best audio solution for gamers with isolated audio PCB and high quality audio caps. MSI AUDIO BOOST rewards your ears with studio grade sound quality.
35 Comments on MSI Announces B150M Gaming Pro Motherboard
In the case of this board and cost, after time B85 and H81 boards became almost the same price. I have a feeling this will be the same for the 6th gen platform, but if this board does come at a 60+ dollar price tag the Z170 ASRock would be the better buy, or a cheap H110M board. I was merely commenting on the argument of super cheap boards and the semantics over the Pro moniker. I thought it was silly. Literally nobody will give 2 shits about this board if the cost is too high.
Cheap boards are fine, if they have the right specs. To me, $70 is cheap. Beyond that they start to get real crappy real quick. The cheapest 1151 board right now is $45. So the question becomes, is $35 worth limiting the upgrade potential in the future? To me, it isn't. That is fine if it is for you, I'm not knocking that.
But to slap the Pro moniker on an extreme budget board, and they try to overcharge for it because it is "Pro" and "Gaming", is stupid. And that is what MSI is doing.
I'm not sure what you mean by "upgrading" though. You can easily get any form of SATA SSD that will still be good enough for anybody who would actually be building on a budget anyways. Not like they will realistically notice a difference between 500MB/s and 1500+. I know I didn't at all, and that was with a 40k increase in 4k IOPS.
If you're going to go with a K series i5 or i7 you'd want to upgrade your board anyways, but most looking at the cheaper boards don't need an OC anyways. Hell, I'm running Sandy and still don't need an OC with one card, Titan X or lower. Point being, you may not see the usefulness of a cheap board as a prosumer or enthusiast, but let me tell you everybody loved me when I saved them 30-100+ bucks on getting H81 boards instead and most of them are all rocking the same platform with a GPU upgrade. A better board than the one in the OP should have a secondary 16x slot that's electrically 4x and they can put an M.2 riser in there if they so desire which a couple of my clients did. Them, like myself saw no difference from a standard SATA SSD besides file transfers. I mean real world, not what we can see on a benchmark.
That aside, I do agree with you. The 70 dollar ASRock Z170 either the Pro4s on sale or the one I was referring to before would be miles ahead of this board and probably the better option for most. Just if penny pinching is needed, there's no issue going with a cheaper board to get by. That's been my point all along. Like I said, marketing. In a world of 50 million different motherboards /s they will tack anything to the name to make a quick buck.
You stated my point exactly. If you want to go with a K i5 or i7 you'd want to upgrade your board. Not if I had the Z170 board from the beginning.
But like I said, I'm not disagreeing that budget boards are ok, and there is a place for them. But if you're spending $600+ on a GPU, spend a few extra bucks on the motherboard. Because in the grand scheme, at that price level, an extra $20-30 is not going to kill you. Of course, that doesn't make it any less stupid.
So I don't want to beat a dead horse here, I just don't see it all as sound arguments. Besides the RAM DIMM placement, that was fucking stupid. Those at least should have been push in with the snap on top.
o all the cute puppies in the world..