MSI B350 Tomahawk Review & Linux Test | Level One Techs

Got photos? I'd love to see how you have them laid out... and any tips you might have. Not sure I'm gonna do it, but would just like to see :slight_smile:

RIP warranty though :stuck_out_tongue:

Isn't that a bit reckless (though understandable) for a production machine? :stuck_out_tongue:

Sure, I'll try and make some tonight. It's very little space in there, gonna get my wifes camera with flashlight.

Neither the one nor the other in my opinion. I'm basically glueing together two metal parts with a glue that can be removed completely using rubbing alcohol. No electronics harmed. In the past I've even sold custom modded parts like that on Ebay, buyers where pretty happy.

Replacing (soldering) the capacitors would be another story, I'd still do it if I had an otherwise fully functional board with e.g. a blown capacitor. Still I wouldn't call it reckless. :smiley: I've grown up with electronics and computers, sometimes I buy stuff broken cause I couldn't afford it otherwise, then try & repair it. Usually it works.

EDIT: Put image in a new post.

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I don't mean reckless in the sense that it could go wrong (that would be a given). I mean if you ever need a warranty, even with the stock cooler put back on, MSI will probably deny warranty claims due to unauthorized modifications, no?

Yeah those Nikos fets arent really efficient.
They are very temperature sensitive, and its kinda sadd to see Msi using them on their premium Xpower board awell.

But yeah B350 is lower tier afterall indeed.
Like i said above, of course certain B350 boards will be capable to overclock R7 cpu´s fine.
But if you really want the best overclock experiance for R7 cpu´s, you just better off buying a more higherend X370 board like i said above.
The quality diffrence between used components is significant.

The Richtek RT8894A is a 4+1 phase pwm
So with doubling you can create 8+2 like the Msi X370 Krait.
Or 3+2 like with the lowest end Msi B350M boards.

The hardwareluxx list is a nice list indeed, they still miss some bits and pieces, but they get there.
I had most of the info for X370 boards allready from my own analyses.
Nice to have an additional list for manny B350´s aswell.

Manu, is this 3800Mhz OC limited by the heat, or is it otherwise unstable?
Agreed that this Tomahawk isn't very good quality VRM, but I really think your board is performing worse than others that I've read user experiences about. One should not have to add additional aftermarket cooling to get a mainboard OC to work at what is only 100Mhz over your All Core Boost!

First of all they would have to prove that, wouldn't they? I don't damage anything so there's nothing to prove. And further more:

tl;dr I don't give a f***

Long story:
MSI dropped me already when I complained about the "cold boot" issue and other issues with the board and the BIOS. I asked for a warranty replacement and they denied. Similar story with that hardware internet shop which from now on I will avoid like the plague. I asked for a replacement, they kinda agreed after 3 calls and 2 emails, but with a lot of additional bother, me paying all of their overpriced shipping cost (basically double the regular shipping cost) back and forth, paying another "payment fee" (yeah, that's right), sending a lot of emails just to get my money actually back and not just a voucher for their shop... For a ~100€ board? All this action can be considered illegal in my country, but what can I do? Get myself a lawyer? Again for a 100€ part?

I certainly believe, at least inside any EU country you can put on any aftermarket cooler you want without voiding warranty. CPUs have overheating protection built in. E.g. Zotac stated for their GPUs you can even replace the complete cooling solution, overclock like crazy, still warranty will be intact, as long as you don't do something funny, like that kind of stuff:

You're right for sure, I really tried to get a X370 board with a PCI slot, there simply weren't any when I bought my new rig.

I'm running 3.9Ghz +- a few Mhz, experimenting, 24/7. Rendering with 16 threads is now peaking around 78°C on the CPU and 94°C on the VRM (before +-120°C and rising).

I still keep getting those greenscreens occasionally. Not sure if it's a Windows 10 crash, not enough voltage. I think I got it one day but they keep coming back.

What limits it? Well basically voltage I'd say, I never dialed in more than ~1.41Vcore and that wasn't enough to reach 4Ghz so I never tried harder cause I cannot run that much Voltage productive anyway without buying new CPUs all the time. And I don't really care about 100Mhz more or less.

Here some images, sadly I couldn't make another temp shot under full load cause yet another greenscreen, so I have to ask you to take my word for it.

Idle:

Best cinebench run yet. :smiley:

Load:


Only ten minutes cause the last one crashed and I need to continue with other stuff. Also "only" 15 threads, that why the CPU not fully maxed out. But check the wattage. Take my word VRM and CPU temps are not rising any further than in the image, not after 2h or more, not with 100% load on all cores.

The mod:

I can highly recommend this mod, it's easy and effective, even if you buy the needed parts it will cost less than 10€. Of course, at your own risk.

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So if I understand you correctly, you could be stable over 4000Mhz if you applied a little more voltage, say 1.4v?

No, 1.412..V wasn't enough to reach 4Ghz. Didn't try further.

No, because those are not considered separate parts and so taking them apart isn't covered by the warranty. I believe it's technically not legal to put stickers over the screws that void the warranty, but really not certain about that. I'm not a lawyer, what do I know.

In the warranty it says you can't, they still do it, but that's not a must (most manufacturers do this actually).

But, I do see your point.

Running Win10 Insider Build?

I don't know, maybe we where talking about 2 different things?

CPU coolers: I've never heard of a case where using an aftermarket CPU cooler voided mainboard warranty.
My VRM cooler mod or any 3rd party VRM cooler, requiring to remove the original part: Certainly that can void warranty. Still if you don't damage anything and are able to restore the original state, who's gonna find out?

I'm running regular Win 10 Home, no Insider Build. Greenscreens don't seem to be related to temps at all, not even to maximising CPU load. Sometimes I render for hours, nothing. Sometimes I play a game, CPU yawning. Greenscreen. They happen like every other day but keep happening. All info will be highly appreciated.

Well.. teeeccchnically, the warranty states no aftermarket coolers (in case there is a stock cooler) - but seriously yeah, who's gonna find out. Also you should rather loose warranty if you don't :stuck_out_tongue:

probably noone (except if they check the thermal compound). Some manufacturers might still be accomodating towards it, idk.

That's weird... Greenscreens are only supposed to be in the Insider Builds... regular installs should still only bluescreen...

This is news to me.
Can you provide any text that states that the warranty is void if one was not to use the Wraith cooler provided with the CPU?

(sorry for the confusion)

Gotta admit, I haven't read the warranty card of anything current gen, but it was in the warranty card that came with my 1090T back in the day.

This may have changed over the years, I don't want to lean out the window too far...

Actually now I'm really interested, but I can't find the warranty card for the 1700 anywhere online :frowning:

Just to clear out some confusion from my side: I haven't actually replaced the VRM heatsink, I mounted the alu heatsinks on top of the existing one.

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OOOOoooooohhhhhhhh now I get it... Yeah well, that's certainly not a warranty violation... Now I also get what you meant with

That indeed cleared a bit of confusion on my part.

Not sure if sarcasm. :smile:
Well for anyone planing to copy my mod, I cannot guaranty that it won't void warranty. I explained my point, but do it at your own risk, please!

Interesting, someone on the MSI official forums asked the same question I asked google the whole day: Where is the SoC Voltage setting (another board)?

Even more interesting, I think someone either has been reading here or had the same idea I had:
CPU NB Voltage = SoC Voltage
The moderator of that forum is confirming this. Also look at the dates of the posts here and there. :smiley:

The thing is... I don't actually believe anymore that CPU NB is SoC.
Look at this video, the AMD guy explains raising the SoC Voltage is great for stabilizing memory overclocks, then looks at the screen, figures there is no SoC Voltage. Lol.
He also clearly states that you actually never have to touch CPU NB Voltage.
We Got Inside AMD's..

Well I guess weird things happen to weird people like me. All of this makes me paranoid. MSI is watching me. Gonna take my meds now.

No, that was one of the few moments today I was serious ._.

Confirmed NB is not soc, at the amd thing.
Will have a video soon on step by step approach to this.

And soc voltage is there