The Intel B560 Motherboard Overview: 30+ Budget Models Starting from $75
by Gavin Bonshor on March 29, 2021 7:00 AM ESTMSI MAG B560 Tomahawk Wi-Fi
One of MSI's most interesting series over the last few years has been the Tomahawk. Representing its more modest gaming-focused MAG (arsenal gaming) series, it's been proven to good effect with a mixture of decent features, usually at a very competitive price point. The MSI MAG B560 Tomahawk Wi-Fi looks to further solidify this for Intel's more budget-focused LGA1200 B560 series. It includes a black PCB, with gunmetal grey heatsinks, including militaristic themed lettering we've come to expect from a Tomahawk; its namesake is a popular missile in the US military's arsenal.
Looking towards the B560 Tomahawk Wi-Fi's feature set, it includes two full-length PCIe slots, with the top slot operating at PCIe 4.0 x16 and the second slot electronically locked to PCIe 3.0 x4. MSI also includes one PCIe 3.0 x1 slot. For storage, there's a trifecta of M.2 slots, with one supporting PCIe 4.0 x4 drives, and two with support for PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA. There are six SATA ports, two with straight-angled and four with right-angled connectors, all including support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. In the top right-hand corner are four memory slots which include support for up to DDR4-5000 and a combined capacity of up to 128 GB.
On the rear panel is a single USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and four USB 2.0 ports. MSI is using an unspecified Realtek HD audio codec that powers five 3.5 mm and S/PDIF optical output, while its networking capabilities come from an Intel AX210 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, and a Realtek RTL8125B 2.5 GbE controller. Finishing off the rear panel are a pair of video outputs including one HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 output.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
59 Comments
View All Comments
limitedaccess - Tuesday, March 30, 2021 - link
Rocket Lake CPUs have 20 PCIe (4.0) lanes off the CPU. This a departure from previous generations in terms of lane count. Comet Lake (and older) for Intel have 16 lanes off the CPU.4 of those lanes are connected to the "first" m.2 slot of B560/Z590 motherboards. 10th gen CPUs don't have those lanes even as PCIe 3.0. Previous generation motherboards have all their m.2 slots using lanes connected to the chipset.
jrbales@outlook.com - Wednesday, March 31, 2021 - link
Thanks for the explanation. My AMD X570 has PCIE 4 lanes from both CPU and chipset, so this is my first build wheres I'm running up against this limitation. Now it all makes sense and fortunately, I did place my Samsung 970 EVO into the 2nd M.2 slot. Thanks again! And old dog CAN learn something new!ScottSoapbox - Tuesday, March 30, 2021 - link
There are three typos in the first paragraph that Word or a browser would catch if you took 10 seconds to check. Hint: words need spaces between them.Linustechtips12#6900xt - Thursday, April 8, 2021 - link
am I the only one who noticed the CMOS battery on the wifi thing in the asrock board?? lolutmode - Saturday, April 10, 2021 - link
has reaktek fixed speed dropping issue in their RTL8125B 2.5G NICmammuthus - Sunday, June 20, 2021 - link
Guys, witch one I should choose between ASUS ROG Strix B560-I Gaming WIFI and MSI MPG B560I Gaming Edge Wi-Fi?aigo - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
There is no sound through HDMI ports regardless of the OS; Linux, Windows. Definitely not a multimedia board, and neither it is for gaming.dwoodcock - Friday, August 13, 2021 - link
After messing about with this board all day trying to get RAID working I find out it doesn't support RAID at all!!!BadConfiguration - Thursday, October 28, 2021 - link
Hi Gavin, will the M.2_2 (marked ultra m2) use the pcie lanes from chipset ? Or would it use the pcie lanes from cpu ?