MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk Review
Conclusion
Conclusion
If you’ve read another of our Z890 reviews you can skip this paragraph. It bears repeating though. Like the rest of the Z890 motherboards we’re looking at today, we’re largely considering the MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk in a vacuum. We understand that there is a possibility this will be the only use of this particular socket, so the upgrade path might be a dead end. We also know the Z890 isn’t offering loads that isn’t already available on current Z790 platforms. They are, however, the only way you can use a Intel Core Ultra processor. We have to judge them on those merits.
Variable performance has been the hallmark of our time with the Intel Core Ultra processors. The MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk is no exception. If you read our review of the X870 Tomahawk then you’ll know it was probably the star of the show. We went into the Z890 Tomahawk with lofty expectations that, for whatever reason, it never quite hit. It’s always difficult when we have a suite of products like the Z890. Clearly something, whether it’s backend code or drivers or BIOS, is up. Clearly the performance of the actual processor isn’t what we hoped for, but it’s especially slippery.
What do we mean by slippery? Often you can tell why a particular thing isn’t doing what you expect. Perhaps the processor is getting too hot. Perhaps the motherboard can’t deliver the power. For some reason that you can pinpoint, performance isn’t consistent. The Intel Core Ultra 285K though is brilliant or awful with no rhyme nor reason. There are 36 seconds between our best and worst 1080P Blender result. When we’re dealing in a run of 3 minutes, that’s a lot of time.
It does seem as if a combination of the new Intel Ultra 9 processor and the MSI Z890 Tomahawk just don’t play well together. Admittedly all the results are reasonably similar, but where there is a gap to be found it’s the Tomahawk that’s finding it. Bottom of our memory, Dolphin, Factorio, Guardians and Total Warhammer 3 benchmarks. But it produced the second fastest Blender run and the second highest Riftbreaker score. As we say, it’s inconsistent.
However, we know from the X870 that the underlying Tomahawk elements are strong. We also know from our other Z890 reviews that this is not a problem unique to this neon green offering. However, the results, today, here, now, are what they are and we can’t ignore that either.
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