MSI MAG B560 TOMAHAWK WIFI Motherboard Review

Keeping on with our coverage of B560 motherboards, today we have the MSI MAG B560 TOMAHAWK WIFI. The Tomahawk series of boards fall into MSI’s Arsenal GAMING range which looks to be more of their budget/entry-level gaming range. Some people may be put off by the term entry-level, but there really is no need. Entry-level products are still designed to offer good quality, just in a more affordable, less feature-rich package.

MSI MAG B560 TOMAHAWK WIFI

The MSI MAG B560 TOMAHAWK WIFI motherboard comes with PCIe Gen 4, WiFi 6e, 2.5G LAN, USB 3.2 Gen2x2 and plenty more features for those looking to make the jump up to one of Intel’s 11th Gen CPUs. We have three M.2 slots for storage, one of which is PCIe 4.0 and six SATA 6Gb/s ports. Users looking to use the M.2_2 slot will want to note that if using this, the SATA1 port will no longer work, still leaving you with five other available SATA ports.

Features

• Supports 10th Gen Intel^® Core™, 11th Gen Intel^® Core™, Pentium^® Gold and Celeron^® processors for LGA 1200 socket
• Supports DDR4 Memory, up to 5066(OC) MHz
• Lightning M.2: Running at PCIe Gen4 x4 maximizes performance for NVMe based SSDs
• Premium Thermal Solution: Extended Heatsink Design and M.2 Shield Frozr are built for high performance system and non-stop works
• 2.5G LAN and Intel Wi-Fi 6E Solution: Upgraded network solution for professional and multimedia use. Delivers a secure, stable and fast network connection
• Lightning USB 20G: Powered by USB 3.2 Gen2x2 controller, offering never before seen USB speeds up to 20Gb/s with USB Type-C
• Audio Boost: Reward your ears with studio grade sound quality
• Multi-GPU: With Steel armor PCIe slots. Supports 2-Way AMD Crossfire™

For in-depth specifications, please visit the official MSI product page here.

Looking to purchase? Check it out on:
SCAN.co.uk: MSI MAG B560 TOMAHAWK WIFI
AMAZON UK: https://amzn.to/3mbl3iW

If you are looking for a load of accessories inside the box, look elsewhere, as you are not going to get this with any B560 board. However, MSI has us covered with the basic stickers, a pair of SATA cables, a couple of M.2 screws and our WIFI antenna so we can make use of those super-fast WiFi 6e speeds.

A Closer Look

So, this is what entry-level gaming gets you? Massive heatsinks, triple m.2 slots two of which have heatsinks and plenty of connectors, ports and headers for most anything your average user would need? Yeah, well it seems it is these days! Big ups to the folks at MSI as this B560 TOMAHAWK WIFI board has a lot going on for it.

We have 8-pin and 4-pin EPS power connectors to deliver stable and efficient power to our CPU. While we have not reviewed many B560 boards, this is so far the only one we have seen with an additional EPS connector. Even a quick Google didn’t result in seeing any other motherboards with more than the standard 8-pin EPS connector.

Over to the right side of the board and we have a pair of fan headers and our 5v aRGB and 12 RGB headers. While it is nice that manufacturers are including both types of RGB connectors, it would be even nicer if there wasn’t a need for them, and instead, we only need a single type of connector. For instance, if we had just 5v aRGB, you could have fewer headers on the board or keep the same amount of headers but have them in different locations to offer more access options all-important cable management.

Our four RAM slots are going to allow us to run RAM up to 5,066 MHz when overclocked. This is still rather impressive and sometimes hard to believe how far the advances in memory speeds have come in the past few years.

On to the bottom half of the board and we have three M.2 slots – two of which have heat shields and the uppermost slot will be our PCIe 4.0 slot, two PCIe x16 slots which the bottom slot only runs at x4 according to the specifications page and lastly, a final PCIe x1 slot.

There are a total of six SATA 6Gb/s ports on the B560 TOMAHAWK WIFI board, four of which are actually on the side of the board while the other two are on the bottom.

Across the bottom of the board, we have our standard host of connectors, headers and ports. Left to right we have the front panel audio header, 5v aRGB and 12RGB connectors, a pair of fan headers, LED switch, PCIe 6-pin power input to help supply more power to the PCIe lane for graphics cards, a pair of USB 2.0 headers, two SATA 6Gb/s ports, front panel header and lastly another fan header so we can keep things nice and cool!

On to the rear IO and while there is nothing overly exciting going on here, we do have our standard connectors and a serious number of USB ports, allowing you to hook up most anything you would ever need.

• Four USB 2.0
• DisplayPort 1.4
• 2.5G LAN Port
• Wi-Fi / Bluetooth Antenna
• HD Audio Connectors
• HDMI 2.0b
• Four USB 3.2 Gen 1 5Gbps Type-A
• One USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 20Gbps Type-C
• Optical S/PDIF OUT

As always, just for a bit of fun, I like to show you what’s on the back of the motherboard. Alas, there is nothing to see here so it’s not really fun either but hey, that’s what we do!

How We Test

Here at eTeknix, we endeavour to disclose vital information regarding the benchmarking process so that readers can quantify the results and attempt to replicate them using their hardware. When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of motherboard, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Therefore, your experience may vary.

Testing Your Own System

We typically focus on commonly available benchmarks so that you too can run the same benchmarks on your own system. We hope this makes it easy for our readers to gauge the performance improvement available to them when they upgrade their own systems.

Gaming Tests

All games are run at their specified resolutions using the “high” settings or equivalent. We avoid using the Ultra settings as these often offer diminishing returns for performance vs visuals.

Test Benches

Synthetic Benchmarks

Online Benchmarks

Compression & Rendering

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider Performance

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Far Cry New Dawn Performance

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Metro Exodus Performance

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Available now here.

World of Tanks Performance

Memory & Storage

Power Consumption

How Much Does it Cost?

For around £170.99 at the time of review, this has to be the best B560 board we have seen to date. For £20 more than the ASUS TUF GAMING B560 board, it surely has a lot more to offer. £20 gets you WiFi 6e, an extra M.2 slot, and extra EPS and PCIe power connectors to allow for slightly higher overclocks and overall better stability in power delivery.

Overview

For the price, the B560 TOMAHAWK WIFI motherboard is a great leap into what Intel’s 11th Gen CPUs have to offer. It has more features than we have seen on other B560 boards, and the performance it has to offer is on par with some Z590 models that we have tested. With a fairly pleasing aesthetic and plenty of cooling support to help keep thermals low, this is a B560 board worth checking out if you are in the market for one.

Build Quality & Design

Coming with a 6-layer PCB with 2oz thickened copper, the B560 TOMAHAWK has a real quality look and feel to it. The heatsinks all have the 7W/mK thermal pad we have seen on much more expensive Z590 boards to allow for similar cooling performance. Chuck in a massive rear IO heatsink, a couple of M.2 Frozr Shields, and we can see that while more budget-friendly, MSI have still made sure this board offers good quality in a thoroughly thought out design.

Performance

Again, we are seeing another B560 board matching and even beating Z590 boards in some of our in-house testing! It almost leaves me wondering why your everyday users even want Z590 when the performance can be had for much less, leaving you to spend that money on much more worthy upgrades. The MSI MAG B560 TOMAHAWK WIFI offers brilliant performance out of the box. It has additional features such as extra power inputs to help you take the performance to the limits of what a B560 motherboard can offer.

Added Value

Compared to other B560 boards, we have extra EPS and PCIe power inputs, a third m.2 slot and WiFi 6e, to mention a few added-value features. This will allow us to fully encompass what Intel has to offer with their 11th Gen CPUs and allow us to get the most out of our system.

Should I Buy One?

I can highly recommend the MSI MAG B560 TOMAHAWK WIFI as a solid choice when considering your next motherboard. While I will always say it comes down to the exact features you need from a board, I can also say this should have most of them, especially if you are looking at B560 boards. If you are in the market for a board for your new 11th Gen CPU and don’t quite want to spend Z590 money, this is certainly a board that should be on your comparison list, if nothing else!