MSI MAG B650 Tomahawk WiFi Motherboard Review

Installation

The MSI MAG B650 Tomahawk WiFi is a standard ATX size motherboard, so during our installation we didn’t encounter any issues. For our tests, we used a Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL240 AIO cooler and everything fitted nicely, and there was plenty room in and around the AM5 processor socket.

BIOS

I’ve always liked MSI’s BIOS. It’s easy to use and understand. The 1st page you’ll see the default “Easy Mode” and only shows the CPU and memory information. During our tests, we used a pair of  Kingston FURY Beast RGB DDR5-6000 (2 x 16GB kit). Although they are fully EXPO certified, I was only able to boot the system up at DDR5-5600.

For memory compatibility and QVL (qualified vendors list), I recommend you check MSI”s QVL page here.

If you select “Advanced Mode”, you’ll then see all the other options available for tweaking your processor, memory and more. Voltages for memory and processor can also be adjusted here.

Check out the options for EXPO (EXtended Profiles for Overclocking) memory and AMD’s “Re-size BAR support” (Base Address Register) … both can potentially give you an extra performance boost.

The advanced tab allows users to configure settings for CPU, chipset, storage and NVMe, as well as onboard devices such as LAN and audio.

For overclockers, the BIOS does allows some CPU and memory overclocking, and you can also set the CPU frequency and voltages too. But remember, the B650 isn’t really designed for overclocking … if you want overclocking you should get for the X670E or B650E.