MSI B450 Gaming Plus vs B450 Tomahawk

xsaiga9 · Sep 30, 2018

Im buying a ryzen 5 2600x with g.skill 2x8 ddr4 3200mhz ram,

is there any major difference between the B450 Gaming Plus vs the B450 Tomahawk? if I go with the Gaming plus it'll save me about 20$ which is still good considering games in Canada cost 80$. I dont care much about the RGB

will the gaming plus run the ram at 3200mhz?

drea.drechsler · Sep 30, 2018

xsaiga9 :

Key differences I see to explain the lower cost is the Gaming Plus has only 2 DIMM sockets vs. 4 for the Tomahawk, the Gaming Plus has the low-end Realtek audio CODEC while the Tomahawk has a mid-range CODEC and Tomahawk has two m.2 sockets and 2 PCIe x16 sockets. And, of course, it lacks the red-LED lights.

While it's not the same as Tomahawk's it has a solid looking heat sink on the V-Core VRM and I'd assume MSI is using the same 4 FET per phase VRM scheme as all their other B450 boards. So just as with Tomahawks it should be a solid cool running 4phase even for 8 core CPU's...so long as your overclocking ambitions aren't extreme. It does lack a heat sink on the V-SOC VRM though, so overclocking of Ryzen APU's graphics core may be a bit dicey vs. the Tomahawk. It won't matter in the least for a CPU.

There's no reason to suspect the boards would support memory any differently since this depends more on the specific CPU than the motherboard so 3200 is certainly reasonable with the right RAM and CPU.

One thing to note: the worst 'feature' of MSI is their BIOS doesn't support offset voltage adjustment. This is only important if you do intend to overclock since you're getting an 'X' CPU which is best to overclock by coercing PrecisionBoost2 to boost more cores higher and longer since you can't really get an all-core overclock as high as PB2 can. Doing that entails using a negative off-set to lower voltage as much as you can so the CPU stays cool which enables it to boost more. If it were me, I'd get the 2600 (cheaper) and go for the all-core overclock when getting an MSI board. Of course, if you've no intention of ever attempting to overclock then it's no big deal!

overco · Oct 3, 2018

drea.drechsler :

xsaiga9 :

Key differences I see to explain the lower cost is the Gaming Plus has only 2 DIMM sockets vs. 4 for the Tomahawk, the Gaming Plus has the low-end Realtek audio CODEC while the Tomahawk has a mid-range CODEC and Tomahawk has two m.2 sockets and 2 PCIe x16 sockets. And, of course, it lacks the red-LED lights.

While it's not the same as Tomahawk's it has a solid looking heat sink on the V-Core VRM and I'd assume MSI is using the same 4 FET per phase VRM scheme as all their other B450 boards. So just as with Tomahawks it should be a solid cool running 4phase even for 8 core CPU's...so long as your overclocking ambitions aren't extreme. It does lack a heat sink on the V-SOC VRM though, so overclocking of Ryzen APU's graphics core may be a bit dicey vs. the Tomahawk. It won't matter in the least for a CPU.

There's no reason to suspect the boards would support memory any differently since this depends more on the specific CPU than the motherboard so 3200 is certainly reasonable with the right RAM and CPU.

One thing to note: the worst 'feature' of MSI is their BIOS doesn't support offset voltage adjustment. This is only important if you do intend to overclock since you're getting an 'X' CPU which is best to overclock by coercing PrecisionBoost2 to boost more cores higher and longer since you can't really get an all-core overclock as high as PB2 can. Doing that entails using a negative off-set to lower voltage as much as you can so the CPU stays cool which enables it to boost more. If it were me, I'd get the 2600 (cheaper) and go for the all-core overclock when getting an MSI board. Of course, if you've no intention of ever attempting to overclock then it's no big deal!

Not sure what spec sheet you were looking at but they both have the same amount of DIMM Slots, Same number of x16 PCIe sockets, same audio driver. Also, the Tomahawk only has 1 M.2 slot, same as the Gaming Plus. Only key difference is the more robust heatsink on the Tomahawk.

Looks like you were looking at the MICRO ATX version of the board
When he meant the ATX version

Search

MSI B450 Gaming Plus vs B450 Tomahawk

xsaiga9

drea.drechsler

drea.drechsler

Champion

overco

Reputable

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page