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63 About this deal
Glad you like the review, I always appreciate other viewpoints I'm not one of these delicate flowers that gets all emotional but there were specific reasons for my conclusions beyond the details I went into so I'll list them now; By default MSI uses a 500 KHz CPU switching frequency for both boards and Buildzoid calculates that at 1.2v with a 200A draw the Gaming Edge VRM puts out 46 watts of heat and that would explain why these boards run so hot given a 3950X will pull around 170-190A with PBO enabled. Meanwhile Buildzoid also calculates that the new Tomahawk board will generate just 17 watts of heat under the exact same conditions. That's over a 60% reduction in thermal output. Gen AMD Ryzen™ Processors support DDR4 1866/ 2133/ 2400/ 2667/ 2800/ 2933/ 3000/ 3066/ 3200 Mhz by JEDEC, and 2667/ 2800/ 2933/
The next stop is the firmware all images have been taken from firmware 7C84v15, I’ll admit this review got delayed where I wanted to wait for this firmware release because earlier versions, to be as succinct as possible, were below par, missing features of older AM4 boards, questionable memory compatibility, old bugs rearing up again older chipsets have long since had firmware updates to resolve, etc. And yes, it is UEFI, not “BIOS”, the latter is simply a component of the former now this link will give you some of the simpler reasons why this is now the case. I am by no means an audiophile nor am I the type of person to go spending thousands on equipment for near imperceptible differences but like everybody I do expect the hardware to do the task it is meant for to an acceptable standard and in this regard the MSI attempt at audio is not even close to acceptable on the Noise test or the THD + Noise and IMD + Noise tests, these are differences that you can hear through speakers or headphones and we will get in to this shortly. The worst issue though was with memory I used several different kits on the board all using different ICs including Samsung B-Die, Micron E-Die, Hynix DJR, and Hynix MFR. The B-Die kit seemed ok but all of the Hynix and Micron kits had varying degrees of success the Micron kit particularly did not want to work on the Tomahawk one set of DIMM banks the board outright refused to POST and the other set of DIMM banks the most I could coax out of the kit was 2933MHz and that was the kit of Crucial Ballistix I reviewed so know full well the kit is capable of at least 3333MHz. The kit I ended up using for this review is the Klevv BoltX[/u] which as it turns out is on the Tomahawks QVL list for 3000 and 5000 series CPUs while very similar kits from Klevv are on the memory QVL for the 2000 series CPUs. Even with this kit however the Tomahawk still would not POST at some frequencies without the XMP profile being enabled which is quite unusual, the board really doesn’t have a clue on how to set memory timings when left to its own devices. Don’t be fooled by the memory QVL list for the 2000 series CPUs for the Tomahawk at a glance it looks impressive but on slightly closer inspection you will notice the vast, vast, VAST majority are Samsung B-Die kits, not Hynix or Micron. Other manufacturers like Asus and Gigabyte are doing far better on their QVLs for 2000 series CPUs when it comes to actual tested IC variety which is far more important than number of tested brands all using the same ICs. Gen AMD Ryzen™ Processors support DDR4 1866/ 2133/ 2400/ 2667/ 2800/ 2933/ 3000/ 3066/ 3200 Mhz by JEDEC, and 2667/ 2800/ 2933/ 3000/ 3066/ 3200/ 3466/ 3600/ 3733/ 3866/ 4000/ 4133/ 4266/ 4400/ 4533/ 4600+ Mhz by A-XMP OC MODE Without a doubt the best motherboard on the market at this price point. Even comes with pre-applied thermal compound on M2 heat sinks.
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Set Core Power Free: Extended Heatsink Design, Core Boost, Digital PWM IC, 8+4 pin CPU power connectors, GameBoost, DDR4 Boost The DRAM voltage issue is still present annoyingly, due to the delays I didn’t have time to re-test the other memory kits to see if the Tomahawks memory compatibility is any better. Three out of five issues fixed or patched is pretty good so hopefully another UEFI revision or two will sort these things out fully. To the right of that top fan header are 3-pin ARGB and 4-pin RGB headers. In total, there are two of each, the others located on the bottom of the motherboard. If the RGBs hiding below the chipset heatsink aren’t enough, you can use these headers to add more. RGB control goes through the Dragon Center software suite and Mystic Light application.
As shift focus down to the bottom half of the board, we find M.2 storage, PCIe slots, and the audio bits. Starting on the left side, we spy the naked Realtek ALC40480 codec and a few yellow Nichicon audio caps. Also visible is the audio separation line that’s designed to minimize EMI for the other parts of the board. I’m happy to see MSI went with a newer audio codec versus saving a few pennies on the last-generation codec. Most users will be perfectly content with the audio on the X570S Tomahawk. Cutting out the chuff we are going to get straight to where people will spend most of their time, the OC menu. With UEFI 1.5 you’ll finally have a complete set of options I won’t praise or judge for it taking until this point to happen as it is hard to know if the fault lays with MSI or AMD in this instance due to the AGESA code but it certainly would have been nice to have more refined firmware for the board earlier than this point. I do like how you literally have every tool for OCing at your disposal including the more obscure ones like CPU switching frequency and Spread Spectrum although the latter you can only enable or disable which is a bit annoying and certainly limits the usefulness of Spread Spectrum when trying to get rid of some EMI but chances are it won’t do much for EMI anyway. Now for the final part of this peoples review it is time to see how the X570 Tomahawk OCs and to see if there are any firmware bugs to report on. Just above the DRAM slots is the first (of six) 4-pin fan headers. The CPU_FAN1 header here automatically detects PWM/DC fans and outputs up to 2A/24W. The PUMP_FAN1 defaults to PWM mode and outputs up to 2A/24W, which is more than adequate for most pumps. Last, SYS_FAN1-4 defaults to DC mode and supports up to 1A/12W. All headers support both modes, with adjustments made in the BIOS. There are plenty of headers and enough output to run your cooling system. Gen AMD Ryzen™ Processors, 1st and 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics Processors support DDR4 1866/ 2133/ 2400/ 2667/ 2800/ 2933/ 3000/ 3066/ 3200 Mhz by JEDEC, and 2667/ 2800/ 2933/ 3000/ 3066/ 3200/ 3466+ Mhz by A-XMP OC MODEFinally we're not reporting Delta T over Ambient, instead we maintain a room temperature of ~21 degrees. We have a thermocouple sitting next to the test system monitoring room temp. For 4. (wifi) I'm sure it performs the same as any AX200 WiFi 6 adapter on the market which is why I reject your criticism of it. In the middle of the board, we spy two M.2 slots (under the heatsinks) and four PCIe slots. Starting with the latter, there are two full-size slots, with the primary (top) slot reinforced to prevent shearing from heavy graphics cards. These two slots both support PCIe 4.0 speeds, with the top running a full x16 and the bottom running up to x4 speeds. This configuration supports AMD 2-Way CrossfireX. The two x1 slots get their bandwidth from the chipset and run up to PCIe 3.0 x1. Seven USB ports really isn't enough and I'll give a basic example. Keyboard & mouse, thats 2 USB ports gone. Happen to have a mouse mat that has LED lighting? Another USB port gone. Got a webcam and microphone? Thats two more USB ports gone. If you also happen to have a thumb drive you leave in for firmware updates theres another USB port gone for that as well. Thats 6 out of 7 ports gone right away, add to that a lot of people also have multiple external drives and one or two remaining USB ports isn't enough, not at all. We'll forget about the type C as you can plug a phone in to charge other ways.
A look at the integrated components doesn’t reveal much it is better than average with the 2.5Gbit RTL8125B, intel AX200 WIFI and Realtek ALC1200 but I’m willing to bet the LAN makes no difference to the majority of people over the more standard Realtek L8200A (1Gbit) LAN. The cost of that WIFI module is really starting to have detrimental impacts at this point I feel not including it definitely would have allowed for higher quality components overall and extra USB ports. Looking at competing boards such as the Asus TUF Gaming X570-Plus and Gigabyte Aorus Elite, those boards both use a dozen Vishay SIC639 50A power stages which are basic DRMOS components with basically no current or temperature monitoring. The smart power stages used by the Tomahawk feature current and temperature monitoring, and then of course they're rated for 60A, so will support higher currents. I’m also hard pressed to find any reason to justify the 2.5Gbit LAN and the on-board WIFI, the 2.5G LAN you’d need an internet connection of being able to take advantage of it and considering the majority of ISPs cap at 1Gbit it becomes a flip of the coin as to if that 2.5G LAN is really welcome and the included WIFI isn’t anything special either I tested it with a cheap USB adapter that uses a Realtek chip and it didn’t perform any better making the only point in the WIFI being the Bluetooth and when you can easily go out and get a USB Bluetooth adapter it renders the included WIFI also worthless especially as the space and costs saved could have easily gone to adding USB ports on the rear IO which are just infinitely more useful. I really don’t like that PS2 port either with so few USB ports, get rid of it and add more USB ports.This is where we would usually take a look at the MSI Command Centre and I would heap praise on it for the versatility it has but MSI have replaced the Command Centre with “Dragon Centre”, the latter is total poison being a regression in every way compared to Command Centre I wouldn’t waste your time, or mine, with it in this review but even the stand alone Mystic Light has been axed and melded with this monstrosity so to look at the LED functionality of the Tomahawk we are all going to have to suffer through this. Things like this is why I test with a slightly older CPU to see if the level of standards you would expect extend to the slightly older hardware as well because most people do incremental upgrades when the time is right, not all at once so it is very common to see a slightly older CPU on a up to date mainboard either because upgrades are being done incrementally or because a certain CPU was significantly cheaper than the newer ones while still offering a large portion of the performance the newer CPUs offer. Only support when using Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics and 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Graphics Processors Frozr Heatsink Design:Designed with the patented fan and double ball bearings to provide the best performance for enthusiast gamers and prosumers.
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