Introduction
On September, thirtieth, 2024 AMD launched a brand new chipset refresh series for the AM5 socket and platform, the X870 and X870E. On this evaluation, we shall be testing the MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi motherboard.
The motherboards on this recent release are identified by X870 or X870E monikers. The X870E platforms are a bit more feature-rich and are inclined to be more appointed overall. (and costlier) The X870E differs based totally on the position of two X870 chipsets on the motherboard. MSI has a complete of six motherboards based on the AMD X870E or X870 chipset. Within the X870E tier are the MEG X870E Godlike, the MPG X870E Edge Ti Wifi, the MPG X870E Carbon WiFi, and the MAG X870E TOMAHAWK WiFi.
Now we have previously reviewed the MPG X870E Carbon WiFi. The X870 tier is represented by the MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi and the Pro X870-P WiFi. If you happen to are scratching your head over the MEG, MPG, and MAG prefixes, MSI uses these to distinguish feature sets and overall hierarchy. MEG boards (MSI Enthusiast Gaming) are at the highest with MPG (MSI Performance Gaming) in the center and MAG (MSI Arsenal Gaming) on the lower end…..whew…..
The X870 and X870E chipsets are refinements of the previous X670 and X670E. In truth, there isn’t any performance gain between the 2 chipset versions. This chart from AMD is kind of helpful in the event you need a reference. If you happen to aren’t aware of the AMD X870 and X870E chipsets, these are recent chipsets for AM5 motherboards announced back at Computex 2024. Though these recent AM5 chipsets were announced alongside AMD Zen 5 CPUs (Ryzen 9000 series), they usually are not required to run Zen 5 CPUs, and don’t have any performance differences for Zen 5 CPUs, or Zen 4, in comparison with previous AMD X670 and X670E series chipsets.
Primarily, the addition of USB4 was added as a requirement for X870, and the variety of PCIe lanes changes around a bit to permit for features similar to Gen5 M.2 connectors and Gen5 PCIe expansion slots. This does give motherboard manufacturers a probability to feature recent designs, updated components, and even perhaps higher routing of lanes for higher DDR5 memory frequencies. AMD has an amazing comparison chart here that shows the differences in PCIe assignments and requirements.
Overall, the X870 chipset ushers in several recent additions to the AM5 socket motherboards; namely a dedicated Gen5 M.2 SSD slot, Gen5 x 16 PCIe slot, and USB4 functionality. After all, because the box says, we also get WiFi 7. The MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi also features 8 layer server-grade copper layered PCB, the FROZR heatsink cooling system, EZ Release latches with EZ Clips, 5G ethernet, WiFi7, and dedicated circuit separated audio. We’ll see if all these features justify the $299 price tag.
Packaging and Contents
The MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi was received directly from MSI in a full retail box. The packaging was what appears to be typical as of late. The board was well protected by cardboard inserts and an anti-static bag. All of the accessories were below the board and the wifi antenna was in a separate box. Accessories included a “Quick Start” guide, a pack of stickers, a “shout-out” flyer, two SATA cables, three M.2 EZ-Clips, EZ-Clip tool, driver Flash Drive, m.2 hold-down screw, EZConn cable, EZ Front Panel cable, and the WiFi Antenna.
MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi Features
The MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi is a full-sized ATX motherboard. If you happen to are aware of the MAG branding, this board is decked out in a black-gray color scheme with yellowish logo accents on the heatsinks. Overall the colour is nicely subdued and contrasts the metal heatsinks. The yellow does look misplaced, to be honest.
The heatsinks on this board are heavy and thick. All are powder-coated brushed aluminum. Because of this, the board is heavy but very sturdy. There is no such thing as a flex to the board when handled. The PCB is listed as server-grade, eight-layered with 2oz of copper. There are not any RGBs, but 4 total RGB headers can be found. Three addressable and one 4-pin 12V. Truthfully, the board looks just high quality with no RGBs. There may be a digital DeBug readout on this motherboard, which is a pleasant addition. There may be also a DeBug LED readout for troubleshooting as well. We very much approve of the digital readout. It could be adjusted within the BIOS to display the CPU temperature once the board is in Windows.
There are 4 M.2 slots on this board. The first M.2 slot has an EZ release mechanism. The secondary M.2 heatsink, housing M.2#2 and #3 needs a screwdriver to remove, the screws are secured to the heatsink to maintain them put, an amazing idea. The M.2_4 slot has an EZ release latch mechanism. All of the M.2 slots have tool-less hold-down mechanisms, either a small rotating latch or the MSI EZ-Clip. The M.2 heatsinks have top-mounted thermal pads. The first M.2 slot has a bottom-mounted thermal pad as well. The first PCIe slot has an EZ release latch positioned on the suitable margin, saving your fingers when you need to remove your GPU. It is a superb touch. The first PCIe can be metal-reinforced.
The MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi doesn’t lack connectivity on the rear I/O. There are nine USB-A ports (2x10Gb/s,3x5Gb/s, and 4 USB2.0) and three USB-C ports. Two of the USB-C ports are 40Gb/s USB4. As well as,n there’s 5Gb ethernet from a RealTek 8126-5G and WiFi7/BT 5.4. Audio is as much as 7.1 channels via a RealTek ALC 4080 chipset.
Power Delivery
This motherboard uses a 14+1+1 Smart Power Phase setup with 80amps across the VCore. This ought to be greater than adequate power and protection for CPU overclocking. The twin 8-pin CPU power connectors are placed in the usual location on this MAG board, the highest left. As was stated above, the VRM heatsinks are heavy brushed aluminum. We didn’t discover any heatpipes. The PCB is advertised by MSI as an eight-layer server-grade board with 2oz copper layering. You’ll notice on the underside row of the board is an 8-pin connector for supplying supplemental power to the first PCIe socket.
CPU Socket, Memory and Storage
The MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi supports socket AM5 CPUs within the Ryzen 7000, 8000 and 9000 series. There may be ample space surrounding the socket to put most if not all CPU coolers. Our MSI AIO MAG Core 360I gave us no mounting issues.
Memory supported includes DDR5 DIMMs as much as 256 GB in total. Frequencies are advertised as much as 8400MT/s (OC). Expo profiles are supported for 1 click overclocking. The high quality print also discusses that the board can even support CU-DIMM, but only in “clock driver by-pass mode”. This will change with upcoming BIOS updates. The memory slots are double-latched. Spacing seems adequate for big CPU coolers. The one issue here could also be tall DIMM heatsinks in slot A1 and low cooling fins on an air-cooled heatsink.
Storage slots for this board have been highlighted above. Now we have a primary M.2 which is Gen5 from the CPU. M.2 slot 2 will likewise support Gen5 under certain conditions. The lanes for this slot are from the CPU as well but are shared with the USB4 slots on the I/O panel. This slot will run at Gen4 speeds unless manual adjustments are made within the BIOS to modify all 4 lanes from the CPU to the M.2 slot, disabling the USB4 ports. Under normal operation the lanes are shared, thus M.2_2 will run at Gen4 speed. M.2_3 is an analogous condition. Rated as a Gen4 slot it shares lanes with PCIe slot #3.
There may be a manual selection within the BIOS to route lanes between PCIe3 and M.2_3, nevertheless, irrespective of what we did M.2_3 would only run a maximum of half-speed Gen4. M2.4 is a completely functional Gen4 slot. M.2_3 and 4 are routed from the X870 chipset. Transfer speeds from the information sheets list M.2_1 and _2 at 128Gb/s and slots 3 and 4 at 64Gb/s.
There are space issues with M.2 slots #2 and #3 as now we have seen on most of our X870 motherboard reviews. These slots are essentially directly below the video card. Unless the drives you choose are quite thin, they are going to encroach on the graphics card. There is just space for skinny SSDs with minimal heatsinks. Obviously, in the event you can get away with installing an SSD, you won’t give you the chance to put the motherboard’s heatsink cover. Except for the M.2 slots, there are 4 SATA 6 Gb/s right-angled ports on the suitable side powered by an ASM 1064 chipset.
Expansion
Expansion on this motherboard consists of 1 primary Gen5x16 PCIe slot, one PCIe Gen4x4 slot, and one PCIe Gen3x1 slot. The first slot is supplied by the CPU, the others by the chipset. The first slot is metal-reinforced and has a really nifty EZ Release latch positioned on the right-hand edge (pen pointer added for emphasis in photo).
The first slot is metal reinforced, which MSI calls “PCIe Steel Armor II”. Resulting from this high quality little latch, you’ll be able to remove your giant GPU with one hand. It really works like a dream, really. There are two additional PCIe slots on the board. One is Gen3x1 and the opposite is Gen4x4. Each would work nicely in the event you desired to add risers or a dedicated sound card. Each of those PCIe slots are supplied from the chipset.
Now we have discussed above the BIOS selections available for PCIe slot 3. Again, one of the best we could do on this slot was full Gen3 speeds, not Gen4.
I/O
The rear I/O panel is well supplied on the MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi motherboard. The panel has the motherboard plate embedded which is good to see. Working from left to right: clear CMOS and Flash BIOS buttons, HDMI and USB4-C Ports(40Gb/s), one USB-A Gen3.2 (10Gb/2), three USB-A 3.1 (5Gb/s), one USB4-C, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 5Gb RJ-45 ethernet, USB-A Gen3.2 (10Gb) port, USB-C 10Gb/s port, WiFi antenna ports and SPDIF and sound outputs.
As well as, there are a complete of eight 4-pin fan headers on the board. Three are on the highest row, one labeled Pump SYS, three on the underside row, and two on the suitable edge. Any of those fan headers could also be controlled by the “Hardware monitor” positioned within the UEFI/BIOS.
On the suitable fringe of the board, now we have a single USB type C front panel header (20Gb/s) two right-angled USB Gen 3.1 headers (5Gb/s), and 4 right-angled SATA ports. The underside edge houses the front panel header, two USB 2.0 headers, and the front audio header. We also see the MSI EZ-Conn on the suitable edge. This header has a supplied cable for fans or RGBs. This board has a complete of 4 LED headers, three are addressable and one is a 12V four-pin header. Again, because the motherboard has no native RGBs, it does include said EZ-Conn RGB splitter for all of your RGBs needs, in case you only gotta have RGBs. The combos are nearly infinite in the event you so desire. You possibly can program any RGB using the MSI Center software utility.
UEFI/BIOS
The MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi uses a normal UEFI BIOS, an American Megatrend AMI UEFI. MSI refers to their BIOS as ” CLICK BIOS X “. UEFI is definitely entered from the emblem screen and presents you with the predominant screen. The BIOS by default enters a “Performance Screen” initially then next is the predominant screen for the Easy Mode. There may be an “Easy Mode” and an “Advanced Mode” as you will note within the screenshots.
The layout for the BIOS is definitely quite nice. The Easy Mode is a single screen and offers settings for cpu performance, NPU, and memory, a grouping called EZ Config and EZ On/Off together with CPU, RAM, Storage, and Fan information. Along the underside is a straightforward drag and drop to establish Boot order. The highest of the screen has icons for Flashing (M-Flash) and Hardware monitoring. The Advanced mode will be accessed by a single click. It has a big left-side panel for the menu headers, as a substitute of their usual position on the highest row.
The MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi was delivered to us with BIOS version E7E51AMSI.1A10 dated 12 AUG 24. Probably the most recent version is E7E51AMSI.1A20 and was dated 17 DEC 24. We updated the BIOS using the M-Flash utility. This utility could be very easy to make use of, in truth, certainly one of the simplest now we have encountered. Download and unzip the BIOS file to a flash drive. Place the flash drive. Within the BIOS head to the “flash-drive icon” and open the utility. You then simply highlight the file and enable the utility. MSI also offers “FlashBIOS” positioned on the I/O rear panel.
The one stuff you need are the motherboard, PSU, and a flash drive with the BIOS version. MSI has very complete instructions on the motherboard’s support page. The Click BIOS X could be very easy to navigate and offers slightly detailed explanations as to what each heading does. The Click BIOS X can be nicely customized by MSI to be as easy to make use of as possible. Unique settings similar to MSI Driver Utility Installer, Performance Center, and Hardware Monitor all offer automated selections with one click.
This BIOS is kind of complete and has quite a lot of CPU and memory overclocking menus, along with the AMD Precision Boost Overdrive. If you happen to enjoy tweaking the CPU or memory, we predict this BIOS will present itself as quite satisfactory.
Subsystem and CPU Testing
Testing the MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi was completed using the benchmarks below. The next components were used: Intel Core Ultra 5 245K, Corsair Vengence DDR5 32GB at 6000MT/s (CMH32G5M2D6000C36), MSI Spatium M580 Gen5 NVME and MSI GeForce RTX 4070 GAMING X TRIO 12G graphics card. Comparison results are discussed from the recent review of the ASRock Phantom Gaming X870 RIPTIDE WiFi motherboard.
M.2 Performance
Within the sections above now we have discussed the behavior of M.2 slots #2 and #3 under conditions dictated by BIOS selection. To recap, in the event you leave the BIOS on default settings slot #2 will operate at Gen4 speeds. If you happen to enable the “USB4/M.2_2 Switch” slot#2 will operate at Gen5 speed. Likewise, there’s a “PCIE_3/M.2_3 Switch” that’s speculated to allow M.2_3 to operate at Gen4 speed, but we couldn’t get it to operate that way. As well on “auto” within the BIOS or default, this slot won’t function at full Gen4. Apart from this issue, the M.2 slots performed as advertised and in keeping withthe SSD functionality observed in our other X870 motherboard reviews. One other lesson in “all the time read the instructions”. As all the time, CrystalDiskMark was used to check M.2 performance.
Memory Bandwidth
Here we’re using AIDA64 Cache and Memory Benchmark. The Corsair DDR5 modules are set to their XMP profiles. Given the identical CPU and memory, the outcomes are as expected nearly an identical to other boards.
PCMark10
We utilize the usual full-system PCMark 10 benchmark to measure typical office productivity and performance. The outcomes are in keeping with all our other motherboard reviews.
Cinebench R23
The usual Cinebench R23 benchmark was run for 10 minutes in each multi-core and single-core CPU testing. We resulted in 24,675 and 2183 respectively. The outcomes once more were as expected, nearly an identical to prior testing.
Blender Benchmark
Using Blender our results are Monster 126.9, junkshop 90.5, and Classroom 63.4. These fall in keeping with our other results testing a Core Ultra 5 245K.
3DMark
Using 3DMark we tested the CPU, Integrated graphics, and likewise our MSI GeForce RTX 4070 GAMING X TRIO 12GB GPU. The max threads result’s consistent with the performance within the Core Ultra 5 245K review and our motherboard review results. Time Spy and Night Raid benchmarks likewise give very similar CPU scores.
V-Ray Benchmark
We run the CPU-only benchmark in V-Ray. The result compares well across all X870 reviews.
VRM Temperatures
Here we run the Cinebench R23 benchmark for 20 minutes and measure the VRM temperatures using HWInfo64. The benchmark ran without a problem. while the CPU temperature at 100% load was 94C the VRM temperatures and chipset were between 41 and 43C.
Conclusion
This review has evaluated the MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi motherboard. Now we have reviewed several boards from the MAG TOMAHAWK series and located them to be well-built, well-designed motherboards that supply a full feature set for an excellent price and this one is not any different. The MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi is a full-sized ATX motherboard that supports AM5 processors, DDR5 memory, and Gen5 M.2 storage. Overall, this board offers about all you could possibly ask for so far as features. What this motherboard lacks in RGB bling it makes up for in value and solid performance.
Installation and Use
Installing components on the MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi was no issue. The CPU socket is spacious, the memory slots have latches on each ends and storage and expansion is aided by EZ release mechanisms. The one exceptions are M.2 slots #2 and #3 which involve Phillips screws. All M.2 are tool-less which is a pleasant touch. Our only issue is the fitment height of M.2 slots 2 and three being too near your GPU. The one alternative here is to make use of thin SSDs.
Booting into the UEFI/BIOS and Windows 11 installation was uncomplicated. The “Click BIOS X” from MSI could be very easy to navigate and uses very clear categories and submenus. The BIOS has loads of tweaking selections for overclocking the CPU. Our memory had its XMP profile enabled in a single click.
All of our test benchmarks were in keeping with the performance seen on our other X870 motherboard reviews. The MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi was completely stable operating with PBO and XMP enabled.
The one gripe for this motherboard is the problems with M.2_2 and M.2_3 performance. It is obvious and straightforward the alternative of lane assignments from the CPU and chipset. MSI selected to route the lanes for M.2_2 and USB4 together. You possibly can get the Gen5 function from M.2_2 but only on the sacrifice of the USB4 ports. Otherwise, it is going to be no faster than fast Gen4. USB_3 is a Gen4x2 only. You possibly can disable M.2_3 to have X4 PCIe3 but not the opposite way around.
Unfortunately, the one way the user finds this information is by digging through all of the high quality print. Is it really going to vary anything? That will be as much as the user. If you happen to wanted two Gen5 SSDs and USB4 you can be out of luck. If you happen to wanted a Gen5 drive and three fast Gen4 drives, you’d be out of luck. The one way you’d know these items can be to dig through the web site or the manual before purchase.
Final Points
This review evaluated the MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi motherboard. All in all, this can be a solidly built, nicely appointed full ATX board, following the MSI MAG design and color scheme. The board was easy to work with, ran with no hitch, and performed on a level with our other X870 chipset motherboards. We see nice EZ release touches and many connectivity, including Gen5 speeds, USB4, and WiFi7. There are a few trade-offs, as discussed. These may or will not be a deciding consider your purchase. With that being what it’s, overall, this can be a nicely appointed AM5 socket motherboard that performs just as you’d expect. All the pieces works with no hitch, but do read the high quality print.
