MSI B350 Tomahawk (AM4) Motherboard Review

We will be outlining the MSI B350 Tomahawk motherboard’s performance with the Ryzen 7 1800X CPU and 16GB of 3200MHz G.Skill Flare X DDR4 memory.

Stock voltage hovered around 1.3V under Cinebench load. This was using the latest v1.50 BIOS.

AM4 Motherboard Test System:

• Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 1800X (3.6-4.0GHz + 4.1GHz XFR).
• Memory: 16GB (2x8GB) G.Skill Flare X 3200MHz 14-14-14-34 DDR4 @ 1.35V.
• Graphics Card: Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti Founder's Edition (custom fan curve to eliminate thermal throttling).
• System Drive: 525GB Crucial MX300 SATA 6Gbps SSD.
• Games Drive: 960GB SK Hynix SE3010 SATA 6Gbps SSD.
• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15.
• Power Supply: Seasonic Platinum 760W.
• Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (Creators' Edition).

Comparison AM4 Motherboards:

• ASRock Fatal1ty AB350-Gaming K4.

Software:

• MSI B350 Tomahawk BIOS v1.50 (latest).
• GeForce 381.89 VGA drivers.

Tests:

• Cinebench R15 – All-core CPU benchmark (CPU)
• HandBrake 1.0.7 – Convert 6.27GB 4K video recording using the Normal Profile setting and MP4 container (CPU)
• SiSoft Sandra 2017 – Processor Arithmetic Test (CPU).
• AIDA64 Engineer 5.90 – Memory read, write, copy, and latency tests (Memory)
• 7-Zip 16.04 – Built-in 7-Zip benchmark test (CPU & Memory)
• 3DMark Time Spy – CPU score (Gaming)
• Ashes of the Singularity Escalation – Built-in benchmark tool CPU-Focused test, 1920 x 1080, Extreme quality preset, DX12 version (Gaming)
• Metro: Last Light Redux – Built-in benchmark tool, 1920 x 1080, Very High quality, SSAA, AF 16X, Tessellation: High (Gaming)
• ATTO – M.2, USB 3.0, USB 3.1, and SATA 6Gbps transfer rates (Motherboard)
• RightMark Audio Analyzer – Record and playback test using a line-in to line-out loopback with a 3.5mm audio cable (Motherboard)

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