MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk Review

Introduction and Technical Specifications

Introduction

When the MSI Tomahawk motherboard first appeared in the office, some time ago now, it was very much the affordable option in the MSI range.

Gradually they have been improving all of their models. First the Carbon became more than the value option it started out as. Now the Tomahawk is getting the same treatment. If you read a lot of our coverage then you’ll have seen our recent review of the MSI X870 Tomahawk. It very much was a motherboard punching way above its weight. Not only did you get a lot of current technologies, but the performance was excellent too.

Obviously when MSI asked us if we wanted to review their Z890 Tomahawk we jumped at the chance. Was the AMD model a blip, or is that just how the Tomahawk range is now? Certainly knowing MSI have the MAG, MPG and MEG ranges – in ascending order of intended excellence – then the Z890 Tomahawk should be where all the green accented options have been. But we know the other Tomahawk and Carbon ones are really stretching what you can get for an affordable price, so perhaps this new Intel chipset model will be epic.

As always with such things, there is only one way to find out. A cursory glance at the specification table below shows that the Z890 Tomahawk isn’t lacking with high bandwidth options. A 5G LAN by default. PCI Express 5.0 found everywhere. Even Thunderbolt 4 40Gbps ports for the truly bandwidth hungry. On paper it promises a lot. Let’s see if it delivers.

Technical Specifications