MSI B450 Tomahawk review

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The motherboard follows a standard ATX form factor (30.5 x 24.4cm). The motherboard is located in the Arsenal range of the Ryzen Zen+ desktop processor product stack. You'll spot this B450 mobo for 129 EUR/USD or even less.

 

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Size ATX
Chipset AMD B450
Memory 2667/ 2800/ 2933/ 3000/ 3066/ 3200/ 3466 MHz (by A-XMP OC MODE)
Multi-GPU -
Expansion
  • 1 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slot (PCI_E1)
    • Supports x16 speed with AMD Ryzen 1st and 2nd Generation processors
    • Supports x8 speed with AMD Ryzen with Radeon Vega Graphics processors
  • 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 slot (PCI_E4, supports x4 mode)*
  • 3 x PCIe 2.0 x1 slots*
  1. PCI_E4 will run x2 speed when installing devices in PCI_E2/ PCI_E3 slot.
Storage 1 x M.2 (1x NVMe x4 Gen3 )
6 x SATA 6Gbps
Networking
Realtek 8111H Gigabit LAN controller
Audio Realtek ALC 892
USB

AMD B450 Chipset

  • 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 (SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps) Type-C port on the back panel
  • 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 (SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps) Type-A port on the back panel
  • 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 (SuperSpeed USB) ports available through the internal USB 3.1 Gen1 connector
  • 6 x USB 2.0 (High-speed USB) ports (2 Type-A ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB 2.0 connectors)

AMD CPU

  • 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 (SuperSpeed USB) Type-A ports on the back panel
LED 2 x 5050 RGB LED strip 12V connectors

The unit has enough features to keep you busy for a while. The looks pass anything that can be considered entry-level or value really, including a rear IO bracket, the primary graphics slot has metal shielding.

  

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The motherboard includes all of the standardized B450 chipset options with one full speed M.2 SSD slot, there is no second one though. Also lacking is a thermal cover for the M2 unit.

  

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The I/O back panel reveals several USB 3.1 ports. The audio unit based on Realtek 892. You will spot one 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet jack from Realtek. Included is a PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port. Lacking is an optical S/PDIF out port and five analog audio jacks.  With an APU you can use either DVI or HDMI for monitor output.

 

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The board comes with one 8-pin power connector. You'll get four DIMM slots that can be used for up-to 64GB of dual-channel memory. With regular Ryzen procs, up-to 3200 MHz is supported in OC mode, with the new Zen+ models 3466 MHz is supported. Please do check compatible memory and thus the QVL (Qualified Vendors Lists). There is little active RGB blink to be found on the PCB, only the backside of the PCB has an array of HALO LEDs.

 

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