▷MSI MAG B460 Tomahawk review: great performance on a low budget 🥇

The motherboard MAG B460 Tomahawk is one of the novelties of MSI featuring B460 chipset to support Intel's latest XNUMXth generation processors to market. It is a thought motherboard for those on a limited budget but don't want to give up on performance, thus taking advantage of the latest generation Intel. Will we like it? Let's find out together in the review!

MSI MAG B460 Tomahawk is all about heat dissipation

MSI MAG B460 Tomahawk review: great performance on a low budget

MSI MAG B460 Tomahawk it is a valid solution for those who want to save something on their new configuration, without sacrificing performance. Speaking of performance, one of the first things you notice about this motherboard is the extended heatsink, with an improved circuit design compared to the previous generation, which allows you to better manage the not particularly low temperatures of the new generation of Intel processors.

Continuing with the thermal solutions, at the top and left of the motherboard you can see two other smaller heatsinks with thermal pads, to allow a better heat transfer. To complete the whole there is a M.2 Shield Frozr which allows you to keep M.2 SSDs always at low temperatures, thus avoiding overheating and throttling. With this model MSI has really focused everything on the excellent cooling of the components.

An incredible set of ports on the rear panel

MSI MAG B460 Tomahawk review: great performance on a low budget

In the back we enjoyed thePre-installed I / O shield, which is the cover of the ports and connections of the motherboard. Speaking of ports and connections placed on the back, we find 4 USB 3.2 di type-A a 5Gbps, a USB 3.2 type-C a 20Gbps e 2 2.0 USB ports. There are also video outputs, with one DisplayPort it's a HDMI, the mouse and keyboard connector and the HD Audio connectors. A special mention is a must for the due porte ethernet, one at 1Gbps and one at 2.5Gbps, which is very rare to find in motherboards placed in this price range.

Obviously there is no shortage of gods RGB LED (perhaps a few, for our tamarri tastes) to complete the aesthetics. They are compatible with Mystic light to allow total customization and to synchronize them with other compatible components and peripherals.

Performance doesn't disappoint

The MSI MAG B460 Tomahawk motherboard did not disappoint us at all in terms of performance. The extreme care in heat dissipation makes itself felt, especially under stress, where high temperatures are never reached. This MSI is really stable and even in gaming we have not encountered any problems, obviously with the knowledge that it is a mid-range motherboard.

Unfortunately, however, some compromises have to be made and the heaviest of all, in our opinion, is the limitation of RAM frequency. In fact, the motherboard supports memories up to 2933MHz and it is not possible to overclock to overcome this limit. If it is essential for you to take advantage of memories with a higher frequency, thus also increasing the performance of your configuration, our advice is to focus on motherboards with the Z490 chipset, therefore overclockable.

The performance and the various settings, as always, are configured via the BIOS. Here you can check and manage component parameters, as well as temperatures, fan speeds and much more.

MSI MAG B460 Tomahawk: buy it or not?

Is it worth the purchase? If it is not essential for you to mount high-frequency RAM and you can give up the PCIe 4.0 slots (there are only PCIe 3.0 slots), it's a great motherboard. Especially considering that it retails for around € 150 and supports XNUMXth generation Intel processors. You could then upgrade your configuration on a budget without making too many compromises. For us it is absolutely worth it!