MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk
A utilitarian offering without the bells and whistles.
At $309, MSI’s MAG B550 Tomahawk is a reasonably priced ATX B550 entry. It’s priced far below the luxuriously appointed Aorus Master but it’s hardly a barebone budget board. The B550 Tomahawk comes across as a no frills type of board. The design and presentation is rather unassuming. You won’t see it on display in an all out water-cooled show rig, but you will find it powering plenty of gaming rigs. Like the impression you get from a burbling V8 at low RPM, the Tomahawk’s got it where it counts.
The B550 Tomahawk has two M.2 slots, both of which feature heatsinks, and the second one is thoughtfully placed away from the hot air of a GPU. It’s got six SATA ports, plenty of fan headers along with RGB and a welcome USB Type-C header. The latter is a feature that’s increasingly gaining traction.
It seems MSI really made a concerted effort to improve its VRM implementations, both with its B550 and also recently introduced Z490 boards. The B550 Tomahawk packs in a 10+2+1 phase VRM, a single 8-pin power connector and chunky metal heatsinks. It’s easily capable of powering any current or future Ryzen processor without breaking a sweat. It’s a feature that a considerate buyer with an eye on the 4000 series processors should take note of.
The I/O is the area of the board that’s a little underwhelming. It’s the only board in the roundup not to feature Wi-Fi, though it does include a second 1G LAN port to complement the 2.5G port. We’d also like to see an extra couple of USB ports, even if they are USB 2.0 so you can connect a keyboard, mouse or printer without having to use up the valuable higher speed ports. If you need Wi-Fi, you could consider MSI’s own slightly cheaper B550M Mortar Wi-Fi, but that board doesn’t have a top quality VRM like the Tomahawk does. This is an example of why we think the Tomahawk is well suited to some buyers, but not all.
The B550 Tomahawk performed well in our test suite. The Asus TUF generally leads by a nose, but the Tomahawk snaps at its heels. Its NVMe performance is strong and gaming performance is also pretty good. The strong performance on offer is a factor that adds to our impression of the Tomahawk being a solid choice of board if you have no need for Wi-Fi.
The MSI B550 Tomahawk comes across as a thoughtfully engineered choice that’s more performance oriented. It may not suit every buyer’s needs at this price, but if your focus is on what it does offer, then you will find a lot to like. It’s the kind of board you’d expect to be purring along in 5+ years’ time with a next gen CPU. The lack of Wi-Fi is a drawback, but then who cares if you don’t use it. This is a board to suit a buyer who wants a no bling board with a high quality VRM that’s built with an eye on the future. If it ticks your particular boxes then the B550 Tomahawk is a solid choice. The B550 Tomahawk’s focus on core features and quality power delivery will suit many discerning buyers.
“It’s easily capable of powering any current or future Ryzen processor without breaking a sweat. It’s a feature that a considerate buyer with an eye on the 4000 series processors should take note of.”