The MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk WIFI Intel Motherboard | Unboxing, Installation, BIOS, & Review

[@andrewsievert8433]

I'm so glad you mentioned the box didn't come with a seal. I just bought this same mobo but ddr5 version, and was very concerned about it not having a seal when I unboxed mine. This is my first build with an MSI mobo.

[@Silent157]

Glad to hear, and have received that particular question a few times so far, so wanted to point that out with my MSI motherboard reviews.

[@JamWellMoto]

This motherboard arrived at my porch today and when i opened it up I was worried by the rattling noises so I looked up a video... BINGO. 6:00 Thanks for posting!

[@peterstevens6555]

Great review, nice to have this motherboard in my bedroom as I don't need RGB Lights! Anyway, good afternoon from Auckland, New Zealand. 🙂🙂🙂

[@Silent157]

Thanks for watching and glad the board is working for you. Have to visit New Zealand someday!

[@peterstevens6555]

@@Silent157 Yeah! Just don't forget the season are opposite at the moment it's Winter here in NZ.

[@coldgarden_]

Great review! I love this board. I have the ddr5 version.

[@BenjaminToole-le6yd]

Great video with thorough explanation and description. Might be a silly question, but does this MB support AMD Ryzen 9 processors? TIA.

[@Silent157]

Not a dumb question at all, but no, this does board only supports Intel CPUs. You can check out motherboards with the B650 or X670 chipsets for the latest AMD Ryzen CPU support.

[@akarocket]

I've only ever purchased ASUS and Gigabyte motherboards so I had no idea how MSI's motherboard BIOS would look like. Good to see your review of this motherboard because I just purchased this but haven't had a chance to put everything together yet.

[@AexoeroV]

Are you happy with the board?

[@akarocket]

@@AexoeroV so far, it's been working well after updating to the latest bios. The only thing that's a bit annoying is that before I did the bios update, i was able to run my ram at 6400mhz with the xmp setting. after the bios update, i can no longer enable xmp for my ram. it doesn't boot if i try to mess with my ram settings. my ram is sitting at a default 4000mhz... personally, i am still not used to MSI's bios look and layout.

[@AexoeroV]

@@akarocket about the RAM, thats not good, a new bios should support memory better not worse. What memory kits and proccesor do you have? You cant run the memory at lower, 6200 or 6000mt/s ?

[@akarocket]

@@AexoeroV I initially had issues with waking up from sleep via mouse/keyboard and the RAM XMP not working right. After updating the BIOS to ver H.A0 dated 01/12/2024, I loaded the default bios settings and went through everything again. My issues seems to have been fixed. Waking up on mouse/keyboard works now and the RAM XMP is working properly and showing the correct ram speed at 6400 Mhz. I made another build for my brother's friend, using the ASUS Prime Z790-P WiFi, and it seems that the boot up speed with that motherboard seems to be WAY faster than my system with the MSI MAG Z790. Beyond that though, everything is working so that's fine.

[@AexoeroV]

@@akarocket meanwhile my last reply i decided to buy the Asus Z790 Prime A WIFI, it's a bit better than the P version that your friend have, and sexier 😅 I have 2x16gb DDR5 6600mt/s CL34 installed and they work at their XMP speed flawlessly, i did a lot of RAM torture tests, i used MemTest86 and MemTest86+, Prime95, OCCT, TestMem5 and i have no memory errors or instability.

[@jeffclark9765]

Good video mate. You say "actually" a LOT!

[@nexTPlease-TV]

Hi mate, got a question, them EZ lights will come on every pc startup in same order? Red, orange and white? as shown on your video at 24:20 ?

[@Silent157]

Most motherboard makers have these EZ lights, but may not be in the same order depending on the brand. However, the colors are typically uniform and still giving you the same hint on the current status and what an issue could be also.

[@nexTPlease-TV]

thank you, I had doubts about the order they go, but in time I realised it’s just preliminary check mobo does; all good 👍

[@chills_tiny_mom]

Do you happen to know the storage capacity of the thumbdrive? could I use it to flash a BIOS update from their website?

[@Silent157]

I believe it is 16GB and definitely have used it before to update the BIOS to the board.

[@chills_tiny_mom]

@@Silent157 thanks for the response!

[@michaeld5621]

In the video, you only connected the first 8 pin power supply despite there being double that. Are you not required to connect all 16?

[@Silent157]

No, for the most part only one of the connectors is needed. The other one may be needed for a very power-hungry CPU, or if overclocking was performed. Even then, it still may not be, but no harm in connecting all 16 either.

[@TerryThomasuk]

Excellent video, thank you

[@Silent157]

Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for watching.

[@4brotroydavis]

Got a dell xps mid tower and seems to small to hold this mobo....here to see if im doing something wrong

[@nikd9811]

quick question, I'm new to pc building. I'm thinking of getting this board but am looking at reviews and some people say there PCH temps are rather high. could you tell me exactly where is the PCH on this board? thanks

[@ogama843]

I'm not a computer whiz, but I managed to install my new z970 max wifi. However I cannot get. The wifi to work and bios says cpu is only running 2.2 ghz. What have I done wro g?

[@Ipsissimus]

Hey, thanks for this video. Helped me install it.

[@Silent157]

Great to hear and thanks for watching!

[@Sidreee]

Dang youtube didnt recommend this for me until now but im glad you finally got this review out! Im getting this board as well, fits all my needs when I get my rig. Thanks for the review! Also question, it is known for msi boards with 13thgen that the cpu will get really hot at stock settings while running like cinebench and the solution was to change lite load it from mode 12 and lower. What does Auto mean for that option? I would want to set the best undervolt for my 13600k instead of lite load so is that how you would disable it?

[@Silent157]

You're absolutely welcome. One setting I usually change in the BIOS is disabling any auto-clocking or turbo speed related setting. I have seen a significant difference in temp when this setting is disabled, even when just browsing the BIOS.

[@Sidreee]

@@Silent157 Okay thanks! So what would those settings be called for msi bios?

[@cris20955105233]

​@@Silent157 mine is stuck on the bios menu

[@Later2u]

Great overview review.

[@Silent157]

Thanks for checking it out!

[@allcore5172]

Just bought mine and had the same exact concern when it wasn’t sealed

[@ThisOLmaan]

2:33 seeing the Box read it supports DDR4 -5333MHz does it mean i be able to use my current DDR4 Sticks at 3200MHz ? was looking to buy this board for a i7-13700K or KF. Also since you mention flashing Bios the B4 building the PC does the Board having LED Light indicators on the Board to inform you the boards doing it's Bios installation??? even if not can always just use a USB with a LED Light indicator.

[@sudobored4877]

where is your anti-static straps

[@MikeKing710]

18:00 Also, this arrow for processor orientation is not marked on the motherboard. I only found it on that plastic cover of the socket

[@MikeKing710]

13:00 Actually, this Sata_1 will not work when you will install one of the M2 SSDs

[@tictactoe101]

Very helpful for first timer like me, thank you!

[@gameboyjoe37]

Is it necessary to unscrew the screwed places, or is it possible without any action.

[@gatherstudio5219]

Curious where did you order this from I'm not getting good results from Newegg

[@Silent157]

I believe this particular board was ordered from B&H Photo: www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1731165-REG/msi_mag_z790_tomahawk_wifi.html

[@akarocket]

I just ordered and got mine from Newegg. $239 now! Just waiting for my cooler since i had to RMA it for a replacement.

[@edran4449]

i got the ddr5 version of this board, just wanna know is the usb included hav any important files, like if i were to format is, use the latest bios from the website, will i need to install the usb files first to update the bios. is it ok to just delete the files in the usb and use the update to date files from the website?

[@baconboys5218]

Are you able to provide a link to all the hard ware you used. Cant seem to find a 24 pin power supply unit that would go with this mother board

[@tungris]

Great review! I have one question if I were to get the ddr5 ram version and only buy 32 gbs, could I then a few months later buy the same 32 gb kit and make it 64?

[@coldgarden_]

It's got 4 dimm slots, so sure! Just be sure to put 1 stick on the 1st of 2 slots (1 channel) and 1 stick in the 3rd of 4 slots (2nd channel) until you buy the sticks for the remaining 2 slots. Your computer will run better. I have the ddr5 version it's a great board paired with 12900k cpu. I'm running 4 8GB sticks for 32 GB. The 1st 2 dimm slots are channel 1, the last 2 dimm slots are your 2nd channel.

[@miltona891]

What board you prefer this or the msi edge z790

[@Silent157]

I haven't gotten my hands on the z790 edge, thought it does have some extra features. However, it's up to you to see if it is worth the extra $50-60 for it. Previous Tomahawk motherboards usually did not have WIFI, but lately these do, so a little hard to tell what the differences are.

[@Jack-lp4jd]

Mine came with a indent covering a third of the bottom of the package, though its not very deep. No visible damage that my inexperienced self can tell. Will it be fine, or could there be non-visible damage and I should get a new one?

[@shoktroop]

Thank you for creating this video. It is simple, detailed and helped me greatly! Thank you !

[@tupacmallory]

How is yours booting??? For the past 3 weeks ive been pulling my hair out replacing parts and even reutning the motherboard for a new one and still no boot!

[@tupacmallory]

It flashes the cpu and dram lights and I don't know what to do, I've replaced the cpu and it's not changed even with my new replacement

[@Interdiction]

So many people are telling me not to put an m2 in the 01 slot as it would slow the GPU is there any truth in that rumour

[@fabio24618]

No thats not true. You must put your m2 on the 01 slot. The thing that people talks is about the Tomahawk Max that has PCIe 5.0 X4 and If you use a gen 5 SSD you have to split the gen 5 lanes with the GPU but thats ONLY with a gen 5 SSD If you put a gen 4 SSD given it has backward compatibility you dont have to split the 5.0 lanes. This specific mobo is PCIe 4.0 for the the SSD and PCI e 5.0 x16 on the GPU slot. But given that today GPU s ONLY use PCIe 4.0 there is no point....

[@FreyaMaluk]

I got this mobo and it doesn't turn on for me. It seems like a common issue with this one. Honestly I am so damn dissapointed. I actually had another one ordered of thr same one and same issue. It doesn't post at all. I found a video that shows this and it seems to be a common issue of late. I never had a mobo that didn't even light up to show errors. This is so damn weird.

[@ravindecavalier2912]

Did your mb come with screws? Mine didn’t

[@Silent157]

The screws come with the computer case you are using.

[@netfreak6993]

Why you needed a motherboard three times the price of this processor? Any lower-mid ranged motherboard can handle this process.

[@Silent157]

Definitely true, but doing a review here for this particular board.

[@argogiant]

Did anyone get the personal hotspot working with 6ghz or isnt that even a possibility?

[@mattbarz9538]

What Brand of Dual DDR5 32Gbx2 Ram sticks would yall recommend for this MOBO? Looking to go 64GB for next 5 years! No RGB needed tho !!!!

[@lefrench1131]

Just use 4x 16Go corsair vengeance. It's better to use all the slot available if you want the best performance

[@allcore5172]

Thank you for your video it was helpful with mine. Next time please show the install of SSD and so forth which I’m assuming would help a lot of lower experienced people.

[@Silent157]

Thanks for the thoughts and will definitely keep that in mind.

[@8654ZuluFoxtrot]

No LED or RGB does not look bland, it looks grown up.....put the cover on it and enjoy your PC.

[@justi38]

Thank you

[@Silent157]

You're absolutely welcome.

[@adamhearts9195]

thanks. I'm trying to install this now. w/ 13700k. 4080 👍🌟 edit : my m2 drive aswell shakes a tad

[@adamhearts9195]

I can't get out of bios into windows with m2 windows,,, it shows up in listed drives though sighh

[@StrangewaysNow]

@@adamhearts9195how’d you fix it?

[@TriplogikAmerica]

Unfortunately , this Motherboard has a terrible sound card , causing pop all the time, and MSI has no fix for it . Last MSI I ever buy !