MSI MAG B650 Tomahawk Wifi BEST Value B650 AM5 Motherboard

reviews on how to and on today's video we're taking a look at the b650 tomahawk Wi-Fi from MSI is it worth it keep watching to find out [Music] okay so in today's video we'll be taking a look at the mag b650 Tomahawk Wi-Fi from MSI this is a new board on the market which is suitable for am5 processors and currently as it stands at the moment in the UK is retailing for summer in the region of about 220 pounds which actually makes it one of the more cheap boards on the market if that can be a thing for am5 boards at the moment but you can get cheaper somewhere in the recent about 170 pounds although generally they're going to be Micro ATX and you don't get quite the plethora of features that you get with this board such as three m.2 slots 2.5 gig ethernet and a enhanced sign chip So today we're going to go through do an unboxing show you what you get in the Box go through a tour of the board come back at the end with my final thoughts and there will be follow-up videos on this on how to update the BIOS and overclocking and all that kind of good stuff so let's get on with it so starting with the packaging pretty much the same as most of msi's more modern boards these days so very uh kind of almost generic looking box as it says mag b650 Tomahawk Wi-Fi which is using the b650 chipset and the p650 chipset is a cut down version of the chipset very much like what we had with the x570 and the b550 so this does take away some of those more premium features such as PCO Express Gen 5 although realistically at present at the time of filming which is the January 2023 PCO Express Gen 5 drives are basically nowhere to be seen and the same can be said for graphics card so whether or not you actually need that at the moment is going to be one of those debatable things obviously if you do need that or you potentially do we'll have that in the future then you can go for some of the extreme range boards which will add a significant cost but potentially May last a little bit longer on the back of the box it goes into some of the key features of this particular board so we've got a robust power design so this has got a 17 phase vrm which is split into 14 plus two plus one we've also got 80 amp chokes on there as well so you should be able to uh cope with a considerable amount of power going through the board also you've got 2.5 gigabit Lan which fortunately which is a very weird thing to say it is a real Tech chipset now normally when it comes to networking we'd be looking for an Intel chipset but Intel have had some incredible difficulties with their 2.5 gig Lan chips and it seems to be getting worse and worse so actually the real Tech option at the moment is the better one to go for obviously you've got lightning Gen 4 support so this is your PCR Express Gen4 support which is supported on the graphics card slot primary from the CPU also and all of the m.2 drives and speaking of m.2 drives we've also got some frother cooling included on those although not all of it which is a little bit weird but we'll take a look at that when we take a tour of the board also support for ddr5 memory now this is something which is going to be one of those things for a lot of people where it may be where they decide to either go possibly Intel stick with their assistant am4 platform or take the plunge and go for the more expensive ddr5 memory now currently as it stands again here in the UK ddr5 Ram is actually coming down in price now it's not quite ddr4 prices yet but it is getting very very close so if you are on the verge of building a brand new system and you're looking a little bit towards the future and I think at the moment the M5 platform does hold a lot of benefits over the existing 13 gen Intel and also the outgoing am4 chipsets also included you've got lightning 20g so this is for the USB type-c port so it's a USB type c two times two which is the 20 gigabit per second you also got Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 if that's something which interests you I think for a lot of people here in the UK Wi-Fi is something we don't tend to use as much as other places around the world such as the United States because basically our houses are all brick and mortar so it does really kill off those Wi-Fi signals but it's nice to have it as an option should you not have a dedicated fast 2.5 gigabit Ethernet connection and also we've got memory boost so basically with memory boost is it supports ddr5 we've got a six layer PCB here which is actually a requirement these days for ddr5 because of the high signaling rates and to get that signal stability this will support up to ddr5 6600 megahertz and note out as bosses increase and memory becomes more available that will go up in time also on the back it goes through the detailed specifications of the board itself so I'll put that on the screen for you to take a look at and also gives you an i o overview which we'll take a look at in more depth later when it comes to the unboxing experience it's a very meager Affair as it was with the 13th gen Intel board so we don't get a great deal but we get some of the key things which you're going to need so you get a single solitary very lonely Sata cable you also get a pair of Wi-Fi antenna for that Wi-Fi 6E you also get a pair of m.2 lockers and this is msi's new method of retaining your m.2 drives which I would like to see it's also got a little fast quick release clasp as well which we'll take a look at a little bit later something which most of you probably don't want to see is uh little things like this which is the sticker sheet so this is becoming more and more of a thing for Asus and MSI and obviously other brands as well so you get stickers that you can put on your case you also get stickers you can put over your CMOS batteries should you wish to and also there's some handy labels so you can put those onto addressable RGB cable tools fan label SATA cables and that kind of stuff if you've got a lot of drives you can label those up should you want to yeah I would have probably rather seen an extra m.2 frother Shield but it is what it is also something else you don't get is an instruction manual but you can scan a QR code which is on the back of the box which you'll see from some b-roll you do get a quick installation guide which is very basic and again has the ability to be scanned on the back of the QR and you get a European regulatory notice which uh yeah is again something you probably don't want to know or see okay so let's take a look at the meat and potatoes this is the motherboard itself and if the motherboard does move in the shot then you'll know why because it's very heavy there's a lot of cooling going on here a massive chunk of metal over the 17 phase vrm is again like I said split into a 14 plus two plus one so 14 for the main CPU two for the soc and a single remaining phase all of that is powered by two eight pin ports at the top there so plenty of potential for getting a lot of juice through to your CPU and also at the top there is also a little LED for the past flashback so you can see how that is going nice to see they haven't covered that up fully so when you're flashing your boss and they're panicking thinking is it actually working you can quite easily see the LED which we'll be seeing in a future video slap bang in the middle as you can see this is our new am5 socket which kind of changes things a little bit we've now gone to an LGA style socket so we've got tons and tons of tiny little pins on there I think it's 1881 pins or something along those lines do be careful with these and they do come with a shield over the top to protect it obviously if you're going to be doing anything with the board make sure you put a CPU in there protect those pins at all costs because these boards are expensive and if you bend a pin basically you can pretty much write the board off unless you're very very careful and have extremely and I mean extremely delicate hands because the pins are absolutely tiny something which is quite nice to see is the fact that we do have a little bit of backwards compatibility here so as you can see we have got the am4 style connections there so there will be a large number of coolers on the market which will be am5 compatible straight away without any modifications for others then you may need to remove those and actually put a different back plate in or from plate or whatever that is still very much up in the air but there's a lot of hard work going into a lot of coolers to actually make them am5 compatible being is this is effectively going to be the future for the AMD platform moving across from the CPU socket we've got four Ram slots so this is going to support up to 128 gigabytes of ddr5 RAM speed speed wise again pretty much up to you what you go for anything from around about 4200 up to 6600 megahertz is currently supported like I said likely with boss updates that will increase as time goes on so let's take a look at some more connectivity so we've got a very small very hard to get to CPU connector there also there is a pump connection at the top there so if you want to include a water pump for water cooling Etc then there's a header for it there rather than the usual kind of down here somewhere next that is also a system fan header now the great thing is with MSI boards they all have very good control over the ports actually in the Bios and also in MSI Center and no doubt we'll be doing follow-up videos on how to set that up as well moving on we've got some more connectivity at the top for specific things which aren't necessarily for use for us but are for kind of in the factory but they do show them on there I'm not entirely sure what they do but there you go at the top you've got a RGB connection so 12 volt RGB is still a thing in 2023 and 2024 going on we've also got an addressport RGB header there so that is your 5 volt three pin addressable RGB moving down you've got the diagnostic d-lead which is going to be great because that has basically going to tell you in LED format what is going on with your system so if it doesn't post for some reason it stops either CPU Ram VGA or Euro should boot device so that is going to be useful for working out if things are supported being this is the first generation of am5 that is going to become incredibly useful especially if you put your CPU in the socket and all the pins aren't quite matched up and you get a CPU error or potentially you might need to perform a boss update which you can do this does have a USB boss flashback button underneath that there is another system fan header again pwm DC control or water pumps Etc 24 pin main power connector as we're used to same with the ATX standard underneath that we've got a front panel USB type-c connection always good to see one of those moving across slightly so there is a TPM header over this side we don't really need that because the processor has a ftpm built in but if you want to use a separate TPM module you can plug one in there there's also a system fan header over on the far side and we've also got our Frozen shield over the m.2 slot which is going to be PC Express gem four times four which is supplied directly from the CPU this is only for mvme only no SATA based drives are supported on actually any of the m.2 slots so if you've got an older SATA m.2 drive they aren't going to work on this board at all unless you get an add-in card underneath the m.2 slot we've got our PCR Express slot so this is going to be PCO Express gem4 times 16 and there's also strengthened as well so using msi's technology and solder Etc so really heavy juicy clamp there also you've got the standard release mechanism there I'd have loved to have seen them Implement something to be able to Quick Release graphics cards a bit easier like gigabyte I think do and Asus do one of these little buttons on the side but I guess for a kind of relatively modest budget board I hate saying budget because it's not really budget but for a lower end board I think this is going to be absolutely fine underneath that CMOS battery not going to be easy to get to if your graphics card is in the way but don't worry there is pins on the bottom which you can sure type should you need to underneath that another piece of Express gem4 slot this is only wired for times two but it's gonna be fine for things like adding cards capture cards that sort of thing it is a 16 size slot but it is only wired for PC Express gen four times two moving across got our Tomahawk heatsink there over the b650 chipset we've got four SATA ports on the side so SATA 6G we've also got a USB 3.0 header there for front panel connection nice to see that it's angled outward this is going to be really good I hate the ones which are at the bottom and you have to plug in you get this big bulky thing sticking out the motherboard so it's nice that that's on the side so you can normally tuck that away behind some rubber grommets or something in your case should it have it within another system fan header again pwm DC control Etc we've also got another addressable RGB header at the bottom here and you've got your front panel connectors hard drive LEDs power LEDs reset switch etc etc there's also a system speaker there as well should you want to connect that up you've got another two satis ports giving you six in total moving along we've got two USB 2.0 headers for front panel connections or for connecting other types of devices such as hubs etc for adjustable RGB lighting Etc moving across there are more connections there for fans so we've actually got six fan headers in total on here we've also then got things like your reset for your jumpers chassis intrusion all that kind of stuff moving along another PC Express gem four times one slot this is actually quite useful there are some things which may be useful in there such as ethernet cards that sort of thing possibly even capture cards nice to see they have added another one of those as well at the bottom rather than having it situated somewhere by the graphics card which normally gets covered up just above there we've got another two of our m.2 slots so weirdly I'm not sure why they've done this but you've got the frozo shield on this one so it's labeled number two but this one doesn't have one at all so maybe if you've got something like a cyberant drive or an MSI Drive which has its own built-in heat sinks then that's going to be absolutely fine I think it's a little bit tight they should have at least given you the option of having another one in there so you could put it in there but again I guess it is what it is further on down so we've got our front panel audio connector another audio on this is actually pretty good you have got the alc 4080 chipset which is weirdly a kind of USB type chipset rather than being traditionally wired in through the PCO express bus so that is using USB to connect through the system although it's not a physical USB port but okay you get the general idea you've got some nice caps on there as well to minimize noise Etc it is effectively a kind of an upgrade or a kind of side grade almost of the LC 1220 chipset if you're used to those which is a 7.1 screen setup moving around to the back and this is where things start looking up a little bit for am5 in general over am4 M4 is always one of those things where you're always kind of lacking USB ports but we've actually got a ton of ports on here so we'll start from the top section so we've got our boss flashback button always like to see one of those so as new am5 socket processors come out you'll be able to use the flash button so if you buy this board at a later date obviously when the other processors are available this is going to be compatible so you can get it up Flash the boss and your new 8000 series processors or apu-based processors will be able to be used on this without having to put in an older processor to flash the boss so always nice to see one of those moving across from that we've got our two display outputs so with the new M5 chips at present all of them actually contain onboard Graphics although they are pretty poor they're not really gaming grade but they're enough to kind of get you up and running or for basic business tasks so these will support 4K 60 hertz you've got your 2.5 gigabit Lan there which is the Realtek rtl8125g chipset so again backwards compatible with gigabit and 10 100 so you want to use it you've also got your USB ports there so these are the 10 gigabit per second ones in red and also the bottom one is highlighted as being your boss flashback Port so if you are flashing your boss that's the port you're going to want to use for that you've also got a couple of older Legacy USB 2 ports on there which are going to be great for things like keyboard and mouse we don't need those fast polling rates or fast transfers you've also then got another two USBS there one of which is a type c which is your USB type c 2x2 which is 20 gigabit per second next up you've got a whole bunch of four USB 3.2 gen1 ports so that's gonna be five gigabit per second following on from that we've got our SMA connectors for your antennas for your Wi-Fi 6E and next up we've got our audio outputs which are all individual as well which is really nice to see and also there's a optical speedif for surround sound systems should you want to hook one up looking on the back of the board which we don't generally often tend to do but I thought I'd show you this because the back plate mounting mechanism is very different on this because we've now got the LGA system so this is basically fixed in place and unlike the previous M4 ones where you undid the screws and the whole thing fall off that isn't the case with this this is pretty much fixed in as well we've also got access to the screws for the heatsinks ETC and also there is a screw or two screws rather just here which is for your Wi-Fi 6E that is actually on a m.2e style card so if at some point Wi-Fi 7 comes out and you want to upgrade your board you can take off the rear i o which is captive a couple of screws to take that off and you can replace that card and replace it with a newer Wi-Fi module should you want to so there we go there is a tour of the new MSI mag b650 Tomahawk Wi-Fi I'm still dubious about whether or not this was a good decision obviously having a couple of systems already which are on am4 ready and with processors such as the 5800 or 3900x this is probably a side grade in terms of a lot of things but with the boards slightly coming down in price the processor is definitely dropping in price and in fact I've managed to pick up a 7600 X which was actually cheaper than the standard 7600 again it doesn't come with a stock cooler but that's not a problem because we'll have coolers so actually this turns out to be quite a nice little platform a very kind of similar-ish price depending on what you're looking for if you're looking for this kind of level of sophistication in terms of your 2.5 gig ethernet your 3m.2 slots your decent onboard audio and all that kind of stuff you're going to be spending around about 200 pounds plus on am4 board and definitely going to be spending that sort of thing on an Intel board and of course this is unlocked for overclocking as well so even though it is a slightly reduced chipset you still do have a little bit of overclock in Headroom so if there is anything to give in the processors then certainly you will be able to tweak it on this board at 220 pounds I think it's expensive for what it is in terms of a 50 class chipset we're so used to seeing the b350 b450s even on the market force of 50 60 pounds so to 220 pounds is a huge huge jump but we did experience this with the b550 boards when they came out they seemed extremely expensive and actually now the market as it is most of the B series boards the b550s and even things like x570 boards are pretty much the same price as this or possibly in some instances slightly more expensive so if you are considering the jump you do want to go for a newer architecture I think this is definitely worth a look and as it stands at the moment for the features and for the price this is pretty much the best on the market the only one which comes slightly close to it is the Asus tough b650 Wi-Fi which is a very very similar kind of setup it does have an additional m.2 cooler which possibly would have swayed it for me but with it being a zoo sport you do have to deal with things like Armory crates and Asus as usual craziness when it comes to software so for a stable platform which is going to give you no hassles and is relatively inexpensive for where it is in the market I think the the b650 tomahawk actually ticks the box so that's my thoughts on the b650 tomahawk Wi-Fi from MSI let me know what you think about this one in the comments section below I'm pretty pleased with overall and I'm actually itching to get it installed in the PC behind me which most of you will probably see in upcoming videos so I think it's going to wrap things up I'll be Mike this is microboxing reviews on how to and hopefully we'll catch you in the very next video thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Mike's unboxing, reviews and how to

Views: 71,711

Keywords: best b650 motherboard, am5 motherboard, best ryzen 7000 motherboard, best am5 motherboard, ryzen 7000 motherboard, best motherboard for ryzen 7600x, msi mag b650 tomahawk, msi, mag, b650, tomahawk, wifi, am5, msi b650 tomahawk wifi, msi b650 tomahawk review, msi b650 tomahawk unboxing, msi b650 tomahawk, msi b650 tomahawk, msi b650 tomahawk wifi review, msi b650 tomahawk ram compatibility, best value b650, best value b650 motherboard, best budget b650 motherboard, best budget b650, MSI

Id: NNX84nfABbo

Length: 19min 16sec (1156 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 17 2023