Best MOBO for a 2600x (was gonna get a b450 tomahawk but have seen a lot of MSI hate)

[joestanley2003ct]

I was initially going to go for an msi b450 tomahawk but lots of people have been saying to avoid the msi and gigabyte boards and go for an asus but the asus ones are very expensive and i don't want to spend over £100 (UK).
Any MOBO suggestion or whether i should still go with the tomahawk?

 

[LordVile]

I have the mortar (MATX variant of the tomahawk) and have had no issues at all. Overclocked the 2400g a fair amount and it has a decent set of features for the price. I’ve had this board from MSI and more expensive ones from Gigabyte and AsRock (on intel) and MSI have been my favourites for both UEFI and you get stickers... sometimes.

 

[ChumP]

The MSI B450 Tomahawk is one of the best in class with this chipset.
Presents much lower VRM temperatures compared to the Gigabyte and Asus offerings.

Here's a youtube video from Hardware Unboxed comparing the tomahawk with the other boards:

https://youtu.be/EqQcgwz1hYA

The MSI board has the best VRM temps when stock or OCed.
It also has the highest power consumption for the Ryzen 5 2600 which means that the board is able to provide more power to the CPU with better VRM thernals which results in better OCing.

As you can see from the video the ASUS and Gigabyte boards really fall behind the MSI Tomahawk and ASRock Gaming K4.

Clearly get the B450 Tomahawk despite the controversy with MSI. They've clearly nailed it with this motherboard.

 

[drea.drechsler]

I was initially going to go for an msi b450 tomahawk but lots of people have been saying to avoid the msi and gigabyte boards and go for an asus but the asus ones are very expensive and i don't want to spend over £100 (UK).
Any MOBO suggestion or whether i should still go with the tomahawk?

A second thumbs up for the B450 Mortar here. I've been running my 1700 at 3.9G and the VRM stays cool even under heavy stress testing. I've tried to take it to 4.0G but the CPU won't stay cool even under a 240mm AIO. I can't blame the VRM: it stays cool and the voltage well controlled, the CPU's just not one of the 'golden samples' that will do 4 Gig at reasonable voltage. And other features it has makes it a great value: 2nd NVME, BIOS button that allows flashing a new BIOS even without a CPU or memory installed and others.

There is one technical beef with MSI's approach, though, that's valid. MSI doesn't offer offset voltage adjustment on their B450 boards including Tomahawk and Mortar (I can't say about X470 boards). Offset is very useful when overclocking using performance boost settings (PBO) with the 2600X and 2700X CPU's. But only the X models, the ones with XFR2 features, really need it even though some people prefer offset voltage adjustment to direct adjustment. That may be the source of it so consider if that's what you need when filtering the MSI hate you're hearing.

 

[joestanley2003ct]

Do you think i should go with the mortar to save some money?

 

[ChumP]

VRM wise mortar and tomahawk are similar... you can go with either one.

 

[drea.drechsler]

Do you think i should go with the mortar to save some money?

Mortar is mATX form factor, the Tomahawk is ATX. If your case is ATX and you hate the 'empty' look then I think Tomahawk is the better choice of the two. As it would be if you really like the idea a few more choices for locating an AIC in one of the extra slots it has. But, being a B450 PCIe lanes are limited so look at how they are shed as devices are attached before jumping on that as a differentiator.

Otherwise: i love the second M.2 nVME socket the Mortar has; it makes upgrading the system drive very easy.

 

[madmatt30]

As said, with am4 boards under £100 look at msi & asrock

They have better vrm setups than the cheaper Asus & Gigabyte boards.

Personally I'd take the k4 over the tomahawk

Asrock Fatal1ty B450 Gaming K4 Motherboard https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07FW5ZMHQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_VnPaCb46C1R4V

But they're both decent

 

[joestanley2003ct]

As said, with am4 boards under £100 look at msi & asrock

They have better vrm setups than the cheaper Asus & Gigabyte boards.

Personally I'd take the k4 over the tomahawk

Asrock Fatal1ty B450 Gaming K4 Motherboard https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07FW5ZMHQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_VnPaCb46C1R4V

But they're both decent

Does it have the same rgb features as the mortar and tomahawk?

 

[madmatt30]

The tomahawk & mortar both have 2 X 4 pin standard 5050 Rgb headers.

The asrock has 2 X 4 pin 5050 Rgb headers + a seperate 3 pin addressable rgb header (this is the new breed of rgb that is becoming more & more popular), an awful lot of newer rgb fans & strips are the new addressable variation that doesn't work on the old 4 pin headers.

Arguably the asrock has more options for adding rgb than those 2 msi boards because of this