Msi - B450 Tomahawk Atx Am4 Motherboard Review

From the few 2nd-generation AMD B450 and X470 motherboards we have tested, the bulk have been refreshed models of pre-existing boards. Over fourth dimension, the vendors have had the opportunity to make minor tweaks and upgrades to proceed ahead of current technological advances and inevitable design choices. MSI has tried to tick both boxes with the new B450 Tomahawk which comes with an extended CPU heatsink, USB 3.1 Gen2 support and RGB LEDs.

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The MSI B450 Tomahawk Overview

The MSI B450 Tomahawk is the successor to the popular B350 Tomahawk and offers users a slightly better characteristic fix. This starts with including a pair USB 3.1 Gen2 ports, as well as customizable RGB LED lighting integrated into the board. The B450 Tomahawk is a gaming-themed motherboard and comes from MSI'due south 'Armory' range of motherboards designed to offering users an affordable selection with many of the features establish on the more than expensive models, but with some differentials to keep the overall cost down. This includes the pairing of decent quality and cost-effective Realtek controllers on sound side and the networking side.

One of the nigh benign performance aspects to consider this model over the previous Tomahawk is the increased official memory support. The B450 Tomahawk now has support DDR4-3466 with a maximum chapters of upward to 64 GB beyond four available memory slots. Storage capability is better than expected from a B450 motherboard, with a full of six SATA ports capable of supporting RAID 0, 1 and 10 arrays. On top of this is a single PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA capable Yard.two slot with a maximum of up to M.2 22110 drives being supported. The single M.2 slot doesn't share bandwidth with whatsoever other PCIe slot merely populating the slot with a drive will yet disable two of the 6 bachelor SATA ports; specifically the two right-angled ports closest to the 24-pin motherboard ATX ability input.

On the rear panel, MSI now includes a pair of USB iii.ane Gen2 ports, one Type-A and ane Blazon-C. There is also two USB iii.1 Gen1 Type-A ports, and two USB 2.0 ports, with an option to increase the USB options by a farther ii and iv respectively with internal headers. Video outputs from any integrated graphics can be made through a DVI-D port or an HDMI i.4 port. A unmarried PS/2 combo mouse and keyboard port is also present. The unmarried LAN port is powered by a Realtek RTL8111H Gigabit networking controller and the 6 gold plated iii.five mm sound jacks takes its direction from a middle of the road Realtek ALC892 HD sound codec. MSI has included a BIOS Flashback+ button on the rear panel for a quick and piece of cake experience when updating the board'due south firmware.

The MSI B350 Tomahawk (left) and MSI B450 Tomahawk (correct)

One of the biggest visual differences between the B350 and B450 Tomahawk are the heatsinks and the PCIe implementation. The B450 Tomahawk has a total of five PCIe slots with 1 full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot with a coating of MSI's Steel Armor slot protection, a full-length PCIe 2.0 x4 slot, and three PCIe 2.0 x1 slots which takes up most of the space on the bottom half of the board. The power delivery heatsinks have too been upgraded with the heatsink covering the MOSFETs and extending farther over towards the rear IO. The newer heatsinks have a cleaner and futuristic look, simply with a lighter grey finish. Other differences include the SATA port implementation.

When looking at the overall operation of the B450 Tomahawk, the most positive points to highlight come in the power consumption testing where the 2W idle power draw of the B450 chipset clearly plays a big role. Even at maximum load the B450 Tomahawk even manages to do well with one of the lowest maximum power draws seen from an AM4 board so far. The general functioning throughout the compute and rest of the arrangement based tests is around boilerplate for an entry-level pick, which is more than than acceptable for about systems. Unfortunately the less that impressive sound is a marking against the board.

The overclocking performance however was much meliorate, with a solid four+2 phase power delivery around the usually used Richtek RT8894A PWM controller. This seems to take paid dividends for MSI, as the tight Vdroop control was favorable.

The MSI B450 Tomahawk has an MSRP of $110 which is a $xx increase over the release MSRP of the B350 Tomahawk. This cost can exist attributed to the addition of RGB LEDs integrated into the lath, besides as the inclusion of two USB 3.1 Gen2 ports. The B450 Tomahawk is widely available and tin have a sale price of sub-$100 at Newegg, which makes it a lot more competitive in a currently crowded B450 motherboard market.

Visual Inspection

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Source: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13371/the-msi-b450-tomahawk-motherboard-review

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