The MSI B450 Tomahawk Micro ATX Motherboard Review

Testing the MSI B450 Tomahawk was a great experience, and I'm excited to share my thoughts on this board with you. The first thing that struck me about this board is its compact size. Measuring in at 10 x 9.5 inches, it's a micro ATX board, which means it's smaller than the standard ATX boards. Despite its small size, the MSI B450 Tomahawk is packed with features and offers great performance.

One of the standout features of this board is its cooling system. The board comes equipped with a stock cooler next to the socket, but for my testing, I opted for a different CPU cooler. As for memory support, the board supports up to 64 gigabytes of DDR4 RAM at speeds of up to 3466 MHz in dual channel configurations. For my testing, I used 8 gigabytes of DDR4 RAM sticks running at 2666 MHz. Overclocking capabilities are also supported, with the ability to boost frequencies on select CPU cores.

When it comes to expansion slots, this board offers a limited number of PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 2.0 slots. There's a single PCIe 3.0 x16 slot that runs at x8 speeds if you're using Vega graphics from an APU, as well as two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots. The top slot uses four lanes straight to the CPU, while the second slot uses four lanes via the chipset. However, if you use the second M2 slot, the bottom PCIe slot becomes unusable.

The board also features an eight-pin power connector and a CPU fan header, as well as four SATA ports that support RAID configurations. Additionally, there's a front panel audio section with three audio jacks and two USB 3 ports. The rear panel is just as feature-rich, with four USB 2.0 connectors, a single USB 3 port, an HDMI port, and a DVI port.

One of the unique features of this board is its support for M.2 slots. There's one M.2 slot located above the PCIe slots and another located just after the x1 slots. The top M.2 slot uses PCIe 3.0 with four lanes straight to the CPU, while the second M.2 slot uses PCIe 2.0 with four lanes via the chipset. This allows for support for two-way crossfire.

The MSI B450 Tomahawk also supports AMD's Ryzen Master technology, which allows users to easily monitor and adjust system settings from within the BIOS. The board can be updated using a USB stick, making it easy to keep your system up-to-date with the latest BIOS versions. This feature was not present in the B350 model, so it's a nice addition.

In terms of overclocking, I found that this board is capable of handling high frequencies with ease. When testing the Ryzen 2700 CPU, I was able to easily reach full gigahertz on all cores without any issues. The board also features four +2 V RMS, which allows for further overclocking capabilities.

Finally, I should mention that the MSI B450 Tomahawk is priced reasonably at around $155 Australian dollars and $107 US dollars. While it's not the cheapest option available in the market, it offers a great balance of performance and feature set, making it an excellent choice for those looking to build a compact gaming PC.

Overall, I was impressed with the MSI B450 Tomahawk Micro ATX Motherboard. Its compact size, impressive cooling system, and robust feature set make it an excellent choice for anyone looking to build a powerful yet compact gaming PC.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enAMD recently launched the be 450 chipset for their new rise them two CPUs which gives us a nice option under the x4 70 boards I recently covered MSI's be 450 tomahawk board and now we're looking at there be 450 and mortar which has similar design elements but in a smaller form factor so let's see what this boards got for us inside the box you get the motherboard itself IO shield 2 SATA cables msi badge sticker screws for the M 2 slots installation guide and manual the board has a nice clean black and grey metallic color scheme similar to their be 450 tomahawk so nothing flashy going on here it's also available as the titanium Edition in white though if you prefer that there's some RGB lighting toward the top right hand side and this can be controlled using MSI's light sync software in total there are about 10 different built-in effects but you can always turn it off if you don't like it it's a micro ATX board coming in at twenty four point four centimeters by twenty four point four centimeters unfortunately I don't have any specific micro ATX cases on hand so it looks a little small in my H 700 I starting with the IR from the left visible splash back button a ps2 port two USB 2.0 type-a ports DisplayPort and HDMI 1.4 outputs which are only usable if you're using an APU with Faga graphics 4 USB 3.1 gen2 on type-a ports Gigabit Ethernet port USB 3.1 gen2 type a and type C ports followed by the audio ports using Realtek al c 892 here's how the included black and white iron shield looks at the center of the board is the m4 socket which supports both AMD's mute Rison 2 CPUs but is also compatible with the first generation 2 and for my testing I'm using the horizon 7 2700 CPU with the stock cooler next to the socket are the 4 memory slots which run in dual channel and can support up to 64 gig of memory at ddr4 2666 speeds in my system I'm just running to 8 gig sticks as that's what I've got available and we throw for clocking you can run up to ddr4 3466 i've heard that with the second generation of and memory support has improved so compared to CB 350 you should have better luck with memory overclocking but as mentioned I don't have any exciting memories so I wasn't able to test that out as a micro ATX board PCIe slots are limited from the top down there's a pcie 3.0 x16 slot although it runs of x8 speeds if you're using Vega graphics from an APU and the slot is also reinforced with metal next to to pcie 2.0 x1 slots although if you use the bottom of the 2 that what above will be disabled followed by a pcie 2.0 x16 slot which runs at x4 speeds giving us support for two-way crossfire no mention of SOI ver the first m2 slot is found just above the PCIe slots while the second is found just after the x1 slots the top slot uses pcie 3.0 with four lanes straight to the CPU while the second slot uses pcie 2.0 with four lanes via the chip sir but if you use the second m2 slot then the bottom PCIe slot becomes unusable along the top there's an eight pin power connector and CPU fan header along the right hand side there's four Saito three connectors two of which are on a different angle the 24 pin power connector and a system fan head on finally along the bottom there's the front panel audio second system fan header RGB header TPM connector to USB 2.0 connectors followed by a single USB 3 connector the front panel connectors and second RGB header there's also a third system fan header just above the PCIe slots using the SATA ports the support for raid 0 1 or 10 and there's also support for raid 0 or 1 using the M 2 slots the mordor also supports AMD's news story my technology which basically uses an SSD to cache frequently accessed items from a hard drive resulting in faster overall performance to boot into the BIOS simply press the Delete key during boot it was basically the same as other msi motherboards I've used easy to navigate through and make changes and I had no issues while updating to the latest version noted here which is what I was testing with the BIOS can be upgraded easily by popping the update files onto a USB stick plugging in and pressing the BIOS flush back button on the back of the board it just takes a few minutes to complete this feature wasn't present in the be 350 model and gives us the ability to easily upgrade the board which is really useful given the a m4 socket will be supported until 2020 so when you CPUs come out you won't have any issues if you buy the board with say third-generation Rison in the future with p450 you've also got the option of overclocking - in my testing I was able to easily get my 2700 to full gigahertz on all calls although I didn't do in-depth overclock testing we've got 4 + 2 V RMS here and I wasn't able to measure the temperatures with hardware and ferb because they didn't seem to be a temperature sensor for the VRM here's what the heatsink areas look like at idle using a thermal camera around the mid 20s and with the overclock applied under stress test this area went up by around 20 degrees after an hour as for the pricing the MSI be 450 M morta motherboard is going for around 155 Australian dollars here in Australia at the time of recording all 107 US dollars in the US for my international viewers you can check updated pricing in the description their birth cheaper and more expensive B 450 boards even in the micro ATX form factor you've got a few options but it seemed pretty decent for what you're getting overall I thought the MSI B 450 and Mura was a nice board it's the first micro ATX board I've checked out and in many aspects I liked it more than the larger ATX tomahawk that I reviewed previously especially as you're getting those two empty slots and more USB ports on the back let me know what you guys saw it down in the comments and what other boards you're looking at thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe for future tech videos like this oneAMD recently launched the be 450 chipset for their new rise them two CPUs which gives us a nice option under the x4 70 boards I recently covered MSI's be 450 tomahawk board and now we're looking at there be 450 and mortar which has similar design elements but in a smaller form factor so let's see what this boards got for us inside the box you get the motherboard itself IO shield 2 SATA cables msi badge sticker screws for the M 2 slots installation guide and manual the board has a nice clean black and grey metallic color scheme similar to their be 450 tomahawk so nothing flashy going on here it's also available as the titanium Edition in white though if you prefer that there's some RGB lighting toward the top right hand side and this can be controlled using MSI's light sync software in total there are about 10 different built-in effects but you can always turn it off if you don't like it it's a micro ATX board coming in at twenty four point four centimeters by twenty four point four centimeters unfortunately I don't have any specific micro ATX cases on hand so it looks a little small in my H 700 I starting with the IR from the left visible splash back button a ps2 port two USB 2.0 type-a ports DisplayPort and HDMI 1.4 outputs which are only usable if you're using an APU with Faga graphics 4 USB 3.1 gen2 on type-a ports Gigabit Ethernet port USB 3.1 gen2 type a and type C ports followed by the audio ports using Realtek al c 892 here's how the included black and white iron shield looks at the center of the board is the m4 socket which supports both AMD's mute Rison 2 CPUs but is also compatible with the first generation 2 and for my testing I'm using the horizon 7 2700 CPU with the stock cooler next to the socket are the 4 memory slots which run in dual channel and can support up to 64 gig of memory at ddr4 2666 speeds in my system I'm just running to 8 gig sticks as that's what I've got available and we throw for clocking you can run up to ddr4 3466 i've heard that with the second generation of and memory support has improved so compared to CB 350 you should have better luck with memory overclocking but as mentioned I don't have any exciting memories so I wasn't able to test that out as a micro ATX board PCIe slots are limited from the top down there's a pcie 3.0 x16 slot although it runs of x8 speeds if you're using Vega graphics from an APU and the slot is also reinforced with metal next to to pcie 2.0 x1 slots although if you use the bottom of the 2 that what above will be disabled followed by a pcie 2.0 x16 slot which runs at x4 speeds giving us support for two-way crossfire no mention of SOI ver the first m2 slot is found just above the PCIe slots while the second is found just after the x1 slots the top slot uses pcie 3.0 with four lanes straight to the CPU while the second slot uses pcie 2.0 with four lanes via the chip sir but if you use the second m2 slot then the bottom PCIe slot becomes unusable along the top there's an eight pin power connector and CPU fan header along the right hand side there's four Saito three connectors two of which are on a different angle the 24 pin power connector and a system fan head on finally along the bottom there's the front panel audio second system fan header RGB header TPM connector to USB 2.0 connectors followed by a single USB 3 connector the front panel connectors and second RGB header there's also a third system fan header just above the PCIe slots using the SATA ports the support for raid 0 1 or 10 and there's also support for raid 0 or 1 using the M 2 slots the mordor also supports AMD's news story my technology which basically uses an SSD to cache frequently accessed items from a hard drive resulting in faster overall performance to boot into the BIOS simply press the Delete key during boot it was basically the same as other msi motherboards I've used easy to navigate through and make changes and I had no issues while updating to the latest version noted here which is what I was testing with the BIOS can be upgraded easily by popping the update files onto a USB stick plugging in and pressing the BIOS flush back button on the back of the board it just takes a few minutes to complete this feature wasn't present in the be 350 model and gives us the ability to easily upgrade the board which is really useful given the a m4 socket will be supported until 2020 so when you CPUs come out you won't have any issues if you buy the board with say third-generation Rison in the future with p450 you've also got the option of overclocking - in my testing I was able to easily get my 2700 to full gigahertz on all calls although I didn't do in-depth overclock testing we've got 4 + 2 V RMS here and I wasn't able to measure the temperatures with hardware and ferb because they didn't seem to be a temperature sensor for the VRM here's what the heatsink areas look like at idle using a thermal camera around the mid 20s and with the overclock applied under stress test this area went up by around 20 degrees after an hour as for the pricing the MSI be 450 M morta motherboard is going for around 155 Australian dollars here in Australia at the time of recording all 107 US dollars in the US for my international viewers you can check updated pricing in the description their birth cheaper and more expensive B 450 boards even in the micro ATX form factor you've got a few options but it seemed pretty decent for what you're getting overall I thought the MSI B 450 and Mura was a nice board it's the first micro ATX board I've checked out and in many aspects I liked it more than the larger ATX tomahawk that I reviewed previously especially as you're getting those two empty slots and more USB ports on the back let me know what you guys saw it down in the comments and what other boards you're looking at thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe for future tech videos like this one\n"