LABS TEST / Z490 MOTHERBOARDS
I
f yourwallethasbeenshakingin
thecornerlookingatsomeofthe
pricetagsoftheotherboardsinthis
test,thankfullyyou’llbepleasedtoknow
there’splentyofmoreaffordableZ490
motherboardsaroundthatwillleaveyou
withchangefrom£250.Infact,theMSIMAG
Z490Tomahawkcostsjust£195,makingit
byfarthecheapestZ490boardontest.
Despitethis,though,theboardincludes
plentyofpremiumfeatures.
WhileitstwoVRMheatsinksaren’t
connectedviaa heatpipeunlikeotherboards
ontest,the12+1+1powerdeliveryiscooled
bytwolargechunksofmetal,withthelast
MSI MAG Z490
TOMAHAWK
/£195 inc VAT
SUPPLIER ebuyer.comheatsink morphing
into the I/O shield
too. As a result,themot
a ton, but this shouldm tohandle
lengthy periods of highloadswithoutthe
active cooling that’s employed on some
other boards.
You also get heatsinks for both M.2 ports
and these are set in positions that won’t
require you to remove your graphics card.
Both support PCI-E 3.0 NVMe or SATA 6Gbps
M.2 SSDs, but bandwidth is shared with the
SATA ports, so you won’t be able to fill all
storage ports on the board at the same time.
The lowest temperature we saw from
the M.2 ports using our Samsung 960 Evo
SSD was 47°C – a full 11°C lower than we saw
without the heatsink. There’s a splash of RGB
lighting under the PCH heatsink, but other
than this, you’ll need to add your own lighting
strips and hook them up to the numerous
3-pin digital and 4-pin RGB LED headers.
Sadly, there’s no header for controlling
Corsair RGB components such as pumps
and fans, as you get on the more expensive
MEG Z490 Ace. The rear I/O panel is well
equipped with seven Type-A USB ports plus
an ASMedia-powered USB 3.1 Type-C port
with 20Gbps bandwidth, which is paired with
a USB 3.1 Type-C header on the PCB too.
You also get a 2.5 Gigabit LAN port and an
optical output among the full complement
of audio ports from the Realtek ALC1220
on-board sound.
Like other manufacturers, MSI has been
grappling with the boosting issue with Intel’s
new CPUs and the single-threaded result inCinebenchof 534 suggestsit’ssomeway
behind Asus here. However, both MSI boards
were easy to overclock from the EFI, and had
none of the issues we faced with Gigabyte
and Asus’ boards. However, MSI’s Dragon
Center software didn’t work too well and
often failed to apply overclocks or interfered
with things too.
We also failed to hit the 5.1GHz all-core
overclock we achieved with other boards,
instead hitting 5GHz with 1.24V, which
perhaps suggests the MAG Z490 Tomahawk
is better suited to 6-core and 8-core
10th-gen CPUs than the monstrous Core
i9-10900K. That said, we should stress that
testing was done when new BIOS versions
were landing daily. Audio and storage
performance was on the money and despite
a lower overclock, the benchmarks weren’t
far behind other boards.Conclusion
The MSI MAG Z490 Tomahawk is a solid
board for the money and may well be able to
push a Core i9-10900K to its limits in future.
However, for now, we’d suggest spending
a bit more or opting for the excellent Core
i5-10600K instead.VERDICT
Cheaper than the competition but lacks
features and overclocking prowess.PERFORMANCE
29 / 35FEATURES
24 / 35
VALUE
29 / 30OVERALLSCORE
82 %
erboardweighs
nit’sablTOMAHAWK
Good value for money
Excellent VRM cooling
2.5 Gigabit LAN
BREAD KNIFE- No Wi-Fi
- CPU boosting issues
- Struggled to overclock
Core i9-10900K
SPEC
Chipset Intel Z490
CPU socket Intel LGA1200
Memory support 4 slots: max 128GB
DDR4 (up to 4800MHz)
Expansion slots Two 16x PCI-E 3, two 1x PCI-E 3
Sound 8-channel Realtek ALC1220
Networking 1 x Intel 2.5 Gigabit
LAN, 802.11ax Wi-Fi
Overclocking Base clock 100-
200MHz, CPU multiplier 23-63x; max
voltages: CPU 1.55V, RAM 2V
Ports 6 x SATA 6Gbps 2 x M.2 PCI-E 3.0,
1 x USB 3.1 Type-A, 4 x USB 3.1 Type-C, 1 x
USB 3, 2 x USB 2, 3 x surround audio out
Dimensions (mm) 305 x 244