Introduction

ASUS ProArt B660-Creator D4 (DDR4) review

ASUS has released a motherboard in the Intel B660 series priced just right at 229 EUR/USD. We look at the Alder Lake-ready ProART B660 Creator series, which has two 8cm M2 slots (PCIe Gen4) and two 2.5 GigE ports, and even a pretty strong VRM design.

The B660 board is equipped with an LGA 1700 socket and can support the entire line of Intel's Alder Lake Desktop CPUs. It can house the unlocked lineup all the way up to the Core i9-12900K; however, a preferable option will be to outfit this board with the non-K series processors that launched alongside the B660 series. The ASUS ProArt B660-Creator D4 features an 8-pin + 4-pin connector for powering the CPU socket and is powered by a 12+1 phase digital power supply solution (CPU-only) comprising of 50A SIC654phases paired with a PWM-Controller: ASP2100 / RT3628AE. The motherboard features dark heatsinks above the power supply, providing adequate cooling for the electrical components beneath. In terms of procedure memory, the board features four DDR4 DIMM slots that support XMP overclocking and support capacities of up to 128 GB. ASUS equips the B660 with 1x PCIe 5.0 x16, 1x PCIe 3.0 x16 (x4), 1x PCIe 3.0 x1. There are two 2280 M.2 slots, both of which have a thermal heat sink finished in the same brushed dark color as the rest of the motherboard. There's another M.2/M-Key (CIe 3.0 x4, 2280/2260/2242 as well. The PCH heatsink is coated in the dark palette and embossed with the 'ProART' trademark. Additionally, the board features four SATA III ports. The rear panel connectors include USB 3.2 Gen 2 Sort-A ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, HDMI, Display-Port, a dual 2.5G Ethernet port, and a seven-channel audio jack array. The ASUS ProArt B660-Creator D4 will cost $239 US. We'll load this B660 motherboard up with a Core i9 12900 processor and see how well she handles it. Let's have a peek.