Unveiling the Future of Gaming: ROG Strix B860-G and TUF Gaming B860M-Plus Hit the Web!

The disclosed ASUS B860 boards are M-ATX form-factor motherboards, which provide compact bases for Intel Arrow Lake desktop CPUs and the initial models to surface online are from ASUS.

ASUS Compact B860 Motherboards Showcase White and Black-Themed PCBs and Heatsinks for Intel’s Arrow Lake Processors

The budget-friendly Intel 800-series motherboards are set to become publicly accessible once Intel’s board associates reveal them at CES 2025. However, before we reach the event, fresh leaks have unveiled the designs of the 800-series boards, and today, we have the first glimpse of the micro-ATX motherboards featuring the LGA 1851 socket.

A few days ago, we reported on the leaked B860 motherboards, which exhibited the full ATX form factor, and today, we’ve obtained images of two new variants from the same brand, i.e., ASUS. Thanks to @momomo_us, we have the model names and clear images of the motherboards along with their packaging.

One is the ASUS ROG Strix B860-G Gaming WiFi, which sports a completely white PCB and heatsinks accented with some gray and ROG Strix branding. This will be a mid-tier B860 motherboard in the array that will include contemporary specifications and features, albeit with a few reductions compared to the Z890, such as lack of CPU overclocking capabilities and reduced PCI-E lanes. Nevertheless, the B860-G should accommodate modern components like PCI-E Gen 5.0 SSDs and GPUs.

From the image, we notice some substantial heatsinks over the VRM and M.2 slots. There is one PCI-E x16 slot, at least three M.2 slots, and four SATA connections for storage. On the rear I/O, there appear to be 8 USB Type-A ports and 2 USB Type-C ports. Besides those, it includes 1 HDMI, 1 DP, 3 Audio interfaces, Wi-Fi, 2.5G LAN, and a switch for either Clear_CMOS or BIOS Flash.

The other is the TUF Gaming B860M-Plus, featuring a completely black PCB design accented with some TUF details on the heatsinks. It has one PCI-E x16 slot, one PCI-E x4 slot, four SATA ports, three M.2 slots, and four DIMMs. The I/O includes seven USB Type-A ports and one USB Type-C port for peripheral connections. There is no integrated Wi-Fi but offers a 2.5G LAN and six audio jacks.

That concludes the fundamental specs and features of these two motherboards. With the debut of Intel Core Ultra 200 non-overclockable processors, these will also be available as they are well-suited for budget-friendly PC builds. Fortunately, the PCI-E 5.0 standard is present on Intel B860 boards, allowing support for next-gen graphics cards natively.