MSI B350 TOMAHAWK: A Capable AMD Ryzen Motherboard For $110

[DanL]

Inquiry to which is the second PCI express slot?. You can do crossfire but not sli?.

- The top x16 slot is for the primary GPU. It is PCIe 3.0 with 16 lanes
- The bottom x16 slot is PCIE 2.0 and only has 4 lanes (and it shares those lanes with the two x1 slots)
- Crossfire is possible, but the the x1 slots must be empty
- There is no SLI on B350 because AMD wants to save licensing costs

Bottom line: If you want a multi-GPU setup, go for X370

[cusa123]

• MULTI-GPU: With Steel Armor PCI-E slots. Supports AMD Crossfire™ Then crossfire is between apu and dedicated GPU?

[DanL]

B350 chipsets support neither Crossfire nor SLI,

They don't support SLI, but it looks like AMD is leaving it up to the mobo maker whether to support Crossfire. It is hobbled Crossfire though, since the second GPU runs at PCIe 2.0 x4.

Then crossfire is between apu and dedicated GPU?

No. You use two discrete cards. I don't know if Crossfire (Hybrid Crossfire or "Dual Graphics" as it's called nowadays) would work with a Bristol Ridge APU and a discrete card, but I can't imagine anyone even wanting that.

[Luke_Wolf]

They don't support SLI, but it looks like AMD is leaving it up to the mobo maker whether to support Crossfire. It is hobbled Crossfire though, since the second GPU runs at PCIe 2.0 x4.

mm, looking closer yeah that appears to be the case, I was just going by the official AMD slides on such. The Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 supports crossfire in such a configuration.

[starshipeleven]

the key thing here is more modern options for secondary store. We have M.2 and PCI Express storage option. SATA is on its way to become the modern day SCSI.

fixed.
When I can use m2 for data drives too we can talk again about this.

[nomadewolf]

I am very interested in buying a Ryzen CPU, most likely the R5 1600x, but I am very annoyed about the decisions they made with their chipsets regarding SATA ports. Do they really think that just because M.2 exists nobody needs SATA anymore? Do I really have to buy an X370 board just to get 6 SATA ports? So far I have not found a single B350 with more than 4 ports and that just isn't enough for me.

You can buy a PCI expansion card and get more slots... ideal, no. But not really a big issue either.
And if you actually need more than 2 SATA drives, this solution is probably for the best...

[L_A_G]

Interesting to see a budget board like this outperform an x370 board. I guess this further proves that they pushed many of the current crop of boards out the door before they were actually done and genuinely need some BIOS fixes.

The B350 Tomahawk is definitely an interesting board. Unlike what the article says, two of those "PCIe" ports are not actually PCIe ports, they're just old fashion 90s PCI ports. I think Michael should have a look at that and make a correction to the article.

[molecule-eye]

I am very interested in buying a Ryzen CPU, most likely the R5 1600x, but I am very annoyed about the decisions they made with their chipsets regarding SATA ports. Do they really think that just because M.2 exists nobody needs SATA anymore? Do I really have to buy an X370 board just to get 6 SATA ports? So far I have not found a single B350 with more than 4 ports and that just isn't enough for me.

You do know that you're part of a very small minority, right?

[Rofineli]

So are the benchmarks that are most RAM sensitive/bottlenecked the ones that are performing comparatively well on the Tomahawk board?

[Geopirate]

I am very interested in buying a Ryzen CPU, most likely the R5 1600x, but I am very annoyed about the decisions they made with their chipsets regarding SATA ports. Do they really think that just because M.2 exists nobody needs SATA anymore? Do I really have to buy an X370 board just to get 6 SATA ports? So far I have not found a single B350 with more than 4 ports and that just isn't enough for me.

This is a cheap board geared towards regular users. Most folks put a couple sata/m.2 drives in their system ad throw everything else on the NAS.

This is not a workstation board, so why add workstation features?