ASUS reveals new B850 and B860 motherboards for Intel Core Ultra and AMD Ryzen

Note: This feature was first published on 8 January 2025.

ASUS today put out a slew of new motherboards for Intel and AMD CPUs under its ROG Strix, TUF Gaming and Prime motherboard lines. With this particular announcement, ASUS is focusing on B-series chipsets, spanning motherboards consisting of new B840 and B850 chipsets for AMD, and the B860 chipset for Intel.

Before diving into the plethora of different motherboards that ASUS is presenting, we should note some of the similarities that both Intel and AMD-platform motherboards share. Up front, much of what you'll be hearing about is support for PCIe 5.0, which is present in a majority of these boards.

ASUS's Q-Design, which aims to minimise the usage of tools during installation of components, also makes its way to all the boards in some capacity. While the specific Q-Design feature varies from board to board, the two most prevalent features are the M.2 Q-Latch, which allows for tool-free drive installation, and the PCIe Slot Q-Release, which allows for easier to remove PCIe expansion components (such as a graphics card) without a button or latch.

Additionally, in line with improvements to the BIOS interface made for the ASUS's AMD 800 series motherboard family and Intel Z890 chipset motherboards, the new 2025 motherboards will see their BIOS interface resolution increased to 1920x1080. This is paired with ASUS's BIOS Q-Dashboard, which provides a top-down view of the exact motherboard model installed. This feature is primarily targeted towards new PC builders who may not be familiar with the layout of their new motherboard.

Intel B860 chipset motherboards

Going into the specifics, these are the new Intel B860 motherboards that ASUS has announced. The ROG Strix lineup sees the biggest amount of additions with four new motherboards; this is a brief comparison of what they offer:

The main draw of the ROG motherboards here is the support for PCIe 5.0 for both expansion slots and storage. As expected, the tradeoffs with the smaller micro-ATX B860-G and Mini-ITX B860-I are the singular PCIe 5.0 expansion port, with the latter getting half as many M.2 storage slots and DIMM slots. All motherboards support WiFi 7.

ASUS touts the B860-F as being the highest-end motherboard on this list, and they do have quite a bit to show for it. Not only is the B860-F the only one out of these new motherboards to sport Thunderbolt 4 via USB-C (up to 1x 8K@60Hz display with DSC), it's also the only one that has ROG's proprietary SupremeFX 7.1 ALC4080 codec.

The primary selling point of this codec is its high signal-to-noise ratio, which ASUS states was achieved through "Premium audio capacitors, an audio cover, and SupremeFX Shielding technology". It also supprots 32bit/384kHz playback. This is paired with a Savitech SV3H712 amp, with which ASUS aims to help drive higher-impedance headphones without the need for an audio interface. The rest of the motherboards make do with the more standard RealTek ALC1220P codec.

The TUF Gaming and Prime motherboards also see new B860 additions. These are:

• TUF Gaming B860-Plus WiFi (ATX)
• TUF Gaming B860M-Plus and B860M-Plus WiFi (micro-ATX)
• Prime B860-Plus and B860-Plus WiFi (ATX)
• Prime B860M-A and B860M-A WiFi (micro-ATX)
• Prime B860M-K (micro-ATX)

While not as high-end as the ROG Strix motherboards, they do have defining features of their own. In line with the TUF Gaming brand's focus on durability, ASUS states that the TUF Gaming motherboards have capacitors that provide "52% wider temperature tolerance and up to 2.5 times the lifespan of standard motherboard capacitors". Other durability-related features include a stainless steel rear I/O panel and TUF LANGuard to protect the motherboard from static electricity.

The higher end TUF Gaming B860-Plus also supports a variety of features similar to the above ROG boards, including 4x DIMM slots supporting up to 256GB of DDR5 memory, three PCIe expansion slots (1x PCIe 5.0 slot, 1x PCIe 4.0 x16 slot and 1x PCIe 4.0 x1 slot), and three M.2 storage slots. Like the ROG Strix B860 boards, the TUF Gaming boards do support PCIe 5.0 for expansion slots and storage.

The Prime B860 boards are perhaps the most austere out of the ASUS's new Intel-based motherboards. However, all but the B860-K do support PCIe 5.0 for expansion slots and storage; the Prime B860-K relies on a single PCIe 4.0 x16 port for expansion, but does have one PCIe 5.0 port for M.2 storage.

AMD B840 and B850 chipset motherboards

Like the Intel motherboards before, the ROG Strix lineup of AM5-socket boards sees four new additions:

By and large, many of the specifications remain similar to the Intel B860 ROG Strix boards, with a few caveats depending on whether you're running a Ryzen 9000/7000 series CPU or an 8000 series CPU, as the latter will see a lack of PCIe 5.0 support for M.2 storage. The ROG Strix B850-E, similar to the Intel-based B860-F, will also include ROG's SupremeFX 7.1 ALC4080 codec. One feature that does set it apart, however, is the 5G Ethernet port; the equivalent B860-F board only sees 2.5G Ethernet.

It's also important to note that, while the ATX boards on here have a dedicated DisplayPort, the B850-I does not. DisplayPort has to be used through the 10Gbps USB-C port, with the only other option being HDMI 2.1.

The TUF Gaming and Prime brands of motherboards also see new entries:

• TUF Gaming B850-Plus WiFi (ATX)
• TUF Gaming B850M-Plus and B850M-Plus WiFi (micro-ATX)
• Prime B840-Plus WiFi (ATX)
• Prime B840M-A and B840M-A WiFi (micro-ATX)

Much like the B860 TUF Gaming boards, the B850 motherboards also went through the same plethora of tests, including the stainless steel rear I/O panel and TUF LANGuard.

Options for the entry-level B840 chipset are fewer and farther in between, with a choice essentially coming down to the form factor. The B840 chipset motherboards also do not support PCIe 5.0.

This list only covers the B-series chipsets, however. For enthusiast builders who are looking for the more powerful Z and X-series chipsets for Intel and AMD respectively, ASUS notes that motherboards bearing those chipsets are coming as well. The ROG Crosshair X870E Apex and X870E Extreme were some of the name-dropped X-series chipset boards, while ASUS made note of an ROG Maximus Z890 Hero BTF and an ROG Strix Z890-H Gaming WiFi. Pricing and avaiability for the new B-series chipset boards are not available as of right now.

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