Introduction
On September, 30th, 2024 AMD launched a new chipset refresh series for the AM5 socket and platform, the X870 and X870E. In this evaluation, we will be testing the MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi motherboard.
The motherboards in this new release are identified by X870 or X870E monikers. The X870E platforms are a bit more feature-rich and tend to be more appointed overall. (and more expensive) The X870E differs primarily based on the placement of two X870 chipsets on the motherboard. MSI has a total of six motherboards based on the AMD X870E or X870 chipset. In 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.
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 are scratching your head over the MEG, MPG, and MAG prefixes, MSI uses these to differentiate feature sets and overall hierarchy. MEG boards (MSI Enthusiast Gaming) are at the top with MPG (MSI Performance Gaming) in the middle and MAG (MSI Arsenal Gaming) at the lower end…..whew…..
The X870 and X870E chipsets are refinements of the previous X670 and X670E. In fact, there is no performance gain between the two chipset versions. This chart from AMD is quite helpful if you need a reference. If you aren’t familiar with the AMD X870 and X870E chipsets, these are new chipsets for AM5 motherboards announced back at Computex 2024. Though these new AM5 chipsets were announced alongside AMD Zen 5 CPUs (Ryzen 9000 series), they are not required to run Zen 5 CPUs, and have no performance differences for Zen 5 CPUs, or Zen 4, compared to previous AMD X670 and X670E series chipsets.
Primarily, the addition of USB4 was added as a requirement for X870, and the number of PCIe lanes changes around a bit to allow for features such as Gen5 M.2 connectors and Gen5 PCIe expansion slots. This does give motherboard manufacturers a chance to feature new designs, updated components, and perhaps even better routing of lanes for higher DDR5 memory frequencies. AMD has a great comparison chart here that shows the differences in PCIe assignments and requirements.
Overall, the X870 chipset ushers in several new additions to the AM5 socket motherboards; namely a dedicated Gen5 M.2 SSD slot, Gen5 x 16 PCIe slot, and USB4 functionality. Of course, as 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 will 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 these days. The board was well protected by cardboard inserts and an anti-static bag. All 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 are familiar with the MAG branding, this board is decked out in a black-gray color scheme with yellowish logo accents on the heatsinks. Overall the color is nicely subdued and contrasts the metal heatsinks. The yellow does look out of place, to be honest.
The heatsinks on this board are heavy and thick. All are powder-coated brushed aluminum. As a result, the board is heavy but very sturdy. There is no flex to the board when handled. The PCB is listed as server-grade, eight-layered with 2oz of copper. There are no RGBs, but four total RGB headers are available. Three addressable and one 4-pin 12V. Honestly, the board looks just fine with no RGBs. There is a digital DeBug readout on this motherboard, which is a nice addition. There is also a DeBug LED readout for troubleshooting as well. We very much approve of the digital readout. It can be adjusted in the BIOS to display the CPU temperature once the board is in Windows.
There are four M.2 slots on this board. The primary 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 keep them put, a great idea. The M.2_4 slot has an EZ release latch mechanism. All 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 primary M.2 slot has a bottom-mounted thermal pad as well. The primary PCIe slot has an EZ release latch located on the right margin, saving your fingers when you want to remove your GPU. It is an excellent touch. The primary PCIe is also metal-reinforced.
The MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi does not 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. In addition,n there is 5Gb ethernet from a RealTek 8126-5G and WiFi7/BT 5.4. Audio is up to 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 should be more than adequate power and protection for CPU overclocking. The dual 8-pin CPU power connectors are placed in the standard location on this MAG board, the top left. As was stated above, the VRM heatsinks are heavy brushed aluminum. We did not identify any heatpipes. The PCB is advertised by MSI as an eight-layer server-grade board with 2oz copper layering. You will notice on the bottom row of the board is an 8-pin connector for supplying supplemental power to the primary PCIe socket.
CPU Socket, Memory and Storage
The MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi supports socket AM5 CPUs in the Ryzen 7000, 8000 and 9000 series. There is ample space surrounding the socket to place most if not all CPU coolers. Our MSI AIO MAG Core 360I gave us no mounting issues.
Memory supported includes DDR5 DIMMs up to 256 GB in total. Frequencies are advertised up to 8400MT/s (OC). Expo profiles are supported for 1 click overclocking. The fine print also discusses that the board will also support CU-DIMM, but only in “clock driver by-pass mode”. This may change with upcoming BIOS updates. The memory slots are double-latched. Spacing seems adequate for large CPU coolers. The only issue here may 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. 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 in the BIOS to switch 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 a similar condition. Rated as a Gen4 slot it shares lanes with PCIe slot #3.
There is a manual selection in the BIOS to route lanes between PCIe3 and M.2_3, however, no matter what we did M.2_3 would only run a maximum of half-speed Gen4. M2.4 is a fully functional Gen4 slot. M.2_3 and 4 are routed from the X870 chipset. Transfer speeds from the data 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 we have seen on most of our X870 motherboard reviews. These slots are essentially directly below the video card. Unless the drives you select are quite thin, they will encroach on the graphics card. There is only space for thin SSDs with minimal heatsinks. Obviously, if you can get away with installing an SSD, you will not be able to place the motherboard’s heatsink cover. Aside from the M.2 slots, there are four SATA 6 Gb/s right-angled ports on the right side powered by an ASM 1064 chipset.
Expansion
Expansion on this motherboard consists of one primary Gen5x16 PCIe slot, one PCIe Gen4x4 slot, and one PCIe Gen3x1 slot. The primary slot is supplied by the CPU, the others by the chipset. The primary slot is metal-reinforced and has a very nifty EZ Release latch located on the right-hand edge (pen pointer added for emphasis in photo).
The primary slot is metal reinforced, which MSI calls “PCIe Steel Armor II”. Due to this fine little latch, you can remove your giant GPU with one hand. It works like a dream, really. There are two additional PCIe slots on the board. One is Gen3x1 and the other is Gen4x4. Both would work nicely if you wanted to add risers or a dedicated sound card. Both of these PCIe slots are supplied from the chipset.
We have discussed above the BIOS selections available for PCIe slot 3. Again, 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 nice 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, four 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.
In addition, there are a total of eight 4-pin fan headers on the board. Three are on the top row, one labeled Pump SYS, three on the bottom row, and two on the right edge. Any of these fan headers may be controlled by the “Hardware monitor” located in the UEFI/BIOS.
On the right edge of the board, we have a single USB type C front panel header (20Gb/s) two right-angled USB Gen 3.1 headers (5Gb/s), and four right-angled SATA ports. The bottom 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 right edge. This header has a supplied cable for fans or RGBs. This board has a total of four LED headers, three are addressable and one is a 12V four-pin header. Again, since the motherboard has no native RGBs, it does come with said EZ-Conn RGB splitter for all your RGBs needs, in case you just gotta have RGBs. The combinations are nearly infinite if you so desire. You can program any RGB using the MSI Center software utility.
UEFI/BIOS
The MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi uses a standard UEFI BIOS, an American Megatrend AMI UEFI. MSI refers to their BIOS as ” CLICK BIOS X “. UEFI is easily entered from the logo screen and presents you with the main screen. The BIOS by default enters a “Performance Screen” initially then next is the main screen for the Easy Mode. There is an “Easy Mode” and an “Advanced Mode” as you will see in the screenshots.
The layout for the BIOS is actually 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 along with CPU, RAM, Storage, and Fan information. Along the bottom is an easy drag and drop to set up Boot order. The top of the screen has icons for Flashing (M-Flash) and Hardware monitoring. The Advanced mode can be accessed by a single click. It has a large left-side panel for the menu headers, instead of their usual position on the top row.
The MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi was delivered to us with BIOS version E7E51AMSI.1A10 dated 12 AUG 24. The most recent version is E7E51AMSI.1A20 and was dated 17 DEC 24. We updated the BIOS using the M-Flash utility. This utility is very easy to use, in fact, one of the easiest we have encountered. Download and unzip the BIOS file to a flash drive. Place the flash drive. In the BIOS head to the “flash-drive icon” and open the utility. Then you simply highlight the file and enable the utility. MSI also offers “FlashBIOS” located on the I/O rear panel.
The only things 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 is very easy to navigate and offers rather detailed explanations as to what each heading does. The Click BIOS X is also nicely customized by MSI to be as easy to use as possible. Unique settings such as MSI Driver Utility Installer, Performance Center, and Hardware Monitor all offer automated choices with one click.
This BIOS is quite complete and has a number of CPU and memory overclocking menus, in addition to the AMD Precision Boost Overdrive. If you enjoy tweaking the CPU or memory, we think this BIOS will present itself as quite satisfactory.
Subsystem and CPU Testing
Testing the MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi was accomplished using the benchmarks below. The following 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
In the sections above we have discussed the behavior of M.2 slots #2 and #3 under conditions dictated by BIOS selection. To recap, if you leave the BIOS on default settings slot #2 will operate at Gen4 speeds. If you enable the “USB4/M.2_2 Switch” slot#2 will operate at Gen5 speed. Likewise, there is a “PCIE_3/M.2_3 Switch” that is supposed to allow M.2_3 to operate at Gen4 speed, but we could not get it to function that way. As well on “auto” in the BIOS or default, this slot will not function at full Gen4. Other than this issue, the M.2 slots performed as advertised and in keeping withthe SSD functionality observed in our other X870 motherboard reviews. Another lesson in “always read the instructions”. As always, CrystalDiskMark was used to test M.2 performance.
Memory Bandwidth
Here we are using AIDA64 Cache and Memory Benchmark. The Corsair DDR5 modules are set to their XMP profiles. Given the same CPU and memory, the results are as expected nearly identical to other boards.
PCMark10
We utilize the standard full-system PCMark 10 benchmark to measure typical office productivity and performance. The results are in line with all our other motherboard reviews.
Cinebench R23
The standard Cinebench R23 benchmark was run for 10 minutes in both multi-core and single-core CPU testing. We resulted in 24,675 and 2183 respectively. The results once again were as expected, nearly identical to prior testing.
Blender Benchmark
Using Blender our results are Monster 126.9, junkshop 90.5, and Classroom 63.4. These fall in line with our other results testing a Core Ultra 5 245K.
3DMark
Using 3DMark we tested the CPU, Integrated graphics, and also our MSI GeForce RTX 4070 GAMING X TRIO 12GB GPU. The max threads result is in keeping with the performance in 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 an issue. 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. We have reviewed several boards from the MAG TOMAHAWK series and found them to be well-built, well-designed motherboards that offer a full feature set for a good price and this one is no 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 ask for as 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 both ends and storage and expansion is aided by EZ release mechanisms. The only exceptions are M.2 slots #2 and #3 which involve Phillips screws. All M.2 are tool-less which is a nice touch. Our only issue is the fitment height of M.2 slots 2 and 3 being too close to your GPU. The only choice here is to use thin SSDs.
Booting into the UEFI/BIOS and Windows 11 installation was uncomplicated. The “Click BIOS X” from MSI is very easy to navigate and uses very clear categories and submenus. The BIOS has plenty 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 line 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 only gripe for this motherboard is the issues with M.2_2 and M.2_3 performance. It is plain and simple the choice of lane assignments from the CPU and chipset. MSI chose to route the lanes for M.2_2 and USB4 together. You can get the Gen5 function from M.2_2 but only at the sacrifice of the USB4 ports. Otherwise, it will be no faster than fast Gen4. USB_3 is a Gen4x2 only. You can disable M.2_3 to have X4 PCIe3 but not the other way around.
Unfortunately, the only way the user finds this information is by digging through all the fine print. Is it really going to change anything? That would be up to the user. If you wanted two Gen5 SSDs and USB4 you would be out of luck. If you wanted a Gen5 drive and three fast Gen4 drives, you’d be out of luck. The only way you would know these things would be to dig through the website or the manual before purchase.
Final Points
This review evaluated the MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WiFi motherboard. All in all, this is a solidly built, nicely appointed full ATX board, following the MSI MAG design and color scheme. The board was easy to work with, ran without a hitch, and performed on a level with our other X870 chipset motherboards. We see nice EZ release touches and plenty of connectivity, including Gen5 speeds, USB4, and WiFi7. There are a couple of trade-offs, as discussed. These may or may not be a deciding factor in your purchase. With that being what it is, overall, this is a nicely appointed AM5 socket motherboard that performs just as you would expect. Everything works without a hitch, but do read the fine print.