An entry-level motherboard with
almost everything you need
The vast majority of entry level socket
1155 motherboards use Intel’s H61 chipset, a dinosaur that’s been out since January
2011. Because of its age it lacks several key features, most important of which
is the support for 6Gbps SATA devices. Solid state drives have now dropped in
price to the extent that a 60GB SSD boot disk should be considered for even a
mid-ranged machine, yet before now you had to shell out top dollar to get a
motherboard capable of supporting them to their full potential.
With this board Asus has used the B75; the
cheapest of the new Ivy Bridge chipset family. As with the other
business-centric models the B75 lacks the overclocking support of the Z77, but
otherwise it is well-featured. It has the facility to support eight USB 2.0
ports and four USB 3.0 ports, allows full use of the in-built GPU and has that
all-important 6Gbps support, albeit only via one port. It also supports PCI
devices natively, which will be of particular interest to audio enthusiasts and
there is support for vPro technology.
A superb motherboard that should be
right at the top of your shopping list
Asus has taken full advantage of these
features on the MicroATX P8B75-M LX. There are four external USB 2.0 ports on
the back plate, two internal USB headers, two USB 3.0 ports at the rear and a
USB 3.0 internal header at mid-board. Gigabit Ethernet support is provided by a
Realtek 8111F controller and there is support for VGA and DVI monitors out of
the box. A 16x PCI Express 3.0 slot is provided for video card upgrades and it
is joined by two PCI-E 1x slots and a single PCI slot. Six SATA ports are
provided, one of which is color coded in grey denoting 6Gbps support. The
motherboard has two fan headers; one for the CPU fan and one for a single case
fan and there is an 8-channel audio controller from VIA included.
The motherboard’s BIOS is of the
contemporary UEFI variety and can be navigated by either keyboard strokes or
your mouse. Unusually for an entry level solution it provides access to useful
enthusiast features like detailed control over fan speeds and the ability to
save multiple BIOS profiles. The board is fully Windows 8 certified and
supports all processors from the lowly socket 1155 Celerons all the way up to
the i7 3770K.
If we were being picky there are a couple
of features missing from the P8B75-M LX that would make it better for home
users. Firstly, the lack of HDMI support makes it far from ideal as an HTPC
solution, and the provision for just two memory modules means the board maxes
out at 16GB rather than the 32GB physically supported by the chipset. In a
board costing a little over $64 including VAT, however, these criticisms are
bordering on unfair. For the asking price the P8B75-M LX is a superb
motherboard and should be right at the top of your shopping list if building a
new affordable Intel-based PC. mm Ian Jackson
An excellent entry level motherboard
with contemporary connectivity at a bargain price.
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Details
Price: $67
Manufacturer: Asus
Website: www.asus.com
Required Spec: Socket 1155 CPU
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