ASUS Strix B250F Gaming

Twins: motherboard edition.

The Strix B250F Gaming bears a striking amount of similarities with its H270 stablemate (right). On paper, the core spec is near identical. Put the motherboards side by side and you would be hard pressed to guess which is which without reading the screen-printed labelling on the PCB.

One of the main, yet subtle, differences between the B250F and H270F is the M.2 configuration. While the B250F variant sports two M.2 slots — unique for a B250-based motherboard — this isn’t without constraints. The first M.2 slot is purely a SATA-based slot, meaning devices like the Intel 540S and WD Blue and Green drives from the NGFF SSD roundup in APC 441 will be right at home. However, put a PCIe device in — like the majority of NGFF devices on the market — and you will sadly be left wanting and without operational functionality. The second slot is where you’ll get the NVMe functionality and with it a full four lanes of PCIe, ensuring a device like a Samsung 960 Pro or Evo can stretch its legs. Being a B250 based motherboard, it also means a single IRST ready M.2 slot — the second one.

In lab testing, the Strix 250F Gaming performed well and ranked third overall once the data was crunched. Being one of the equal most expensive boards in the roundup, it’s good to see the performance match the price tag.

Aesthetics are on point with a muted colourway punctuated by RGB illumination from the top right-hand corner of the motherboard’s PCB edge.

A tidy piece of kit, but consider its twin, the H270F.