MSI B350 Tomahawk Replacement/Upgrade

So, I have the same issue that many early adopters have. You pay a tax in the form of inconsistency, bugs and being a beta tester for a company.

My MSI B350 Tomahawk has not been able to POST since the latest BIOS. I've cleared CMOS via jumper and battery removal to no avail. The board has been fairly good the biggest lingering issue I've had is that it would not warm boot. It works flawless from a cold boot though.

I'm sending this thing off for RMA but plan on selling the RMA and buying a new board. School is starting and I don't have time to fuss with an RMA, I need my PC for school in two weeks.

So I am looking at ASUS which is what I ran in my sandy build before moving to Ryzen.

ASUS Strix B350-F
or
ASUS X370-F

FWIW I only see the differences being more sata, a front panel header for USB 3.1 and the 3D Printing mount package.

I don't need any of that but is there something I am missing that makes the X370 a better buy?

The biggest difference is going to be the ability to run multiple graphics cards on the X370 and maybe the VRM configuration. If you were running a B350 board before and didn't feel the need for X370, I'd probably save the $90 and go with the B350 board again.

If I were buying a board right now, that Strix B350 is probably the board I'd be looking at.

kirbyrj said:

The biggest difference is going to be the ability to run multiple graphics cards on the X370 and maybe the VRM configuration. If you were running a B350 board before and didn't feel the need for X370, I'd probably save the $90 and go with the B350 board again.

If I were buying a board right now, that Strix B350 is probably the board I'd be looking at.

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Yeah, no plans to SLI/Crossfire. I do video production for fun but it is not going to be a full-on workstation thing. One sexy board though.

you are overclocking though so the better VRM might be worth something, it has 2 less i would assume its for the CPU i am not sure how Asus has it split up.

Then again if you were running that OC on that MSI board, I believe both of those Asus ones have better VRMs

I can also tell you I have Warm start issues as well with my MSI carbon and the 480gb version of that NVME drive. I pretty much have to shut down or on reboot it wont detect. I am also scared to actually upgrade my bios(running 1.5) since my memory is actually running stable at 3200 14-14-14

luke51087 said:

you are overclocking though so the better VRM might be worth something, it has 2 less i would assume its for the CPU i am not sure how Asus has it split up.

Then again if you were running that OC on that MSI board, I believe both of those Asus ones have better VRMs

I can also tell you I have Warm start issues as well with my MSI carbon and the 480gb version of that NVME drive. I pretty much have to shut down or on reboot it wont detect. I am also scared to actually upgrade my bios(running 1.5) since my memory is actually running stable at 3200 14-14-14

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Crazy thing was I did the norm, I logged my OC settings, reset BIOS and then installed new BIOS. Dud.

I ordered the 350 for now. Worse case I return it and snag the 370. MSI was a new frontier for me.

I've had good luck with the MSI carbon pro Intel board. I'd be willing to take a chance on them with AMD. I hear the b350 carbon pro supposedly has better vrm than most b350 boards.

I have a b350m mortar and the x370 carbon gaming, 1700 at 3.7 on all cores on the b350m and i can tell you the 4 phase VRM gets HOT

So the board is fine. I bought sleeved cables from primo chill... This was the issue.

Glad it wasnt a bricked MB, those are a pain and always "dangit" when it happens. Hopefully you didnt take out your MB yet =P

Gulvan said:

Glad it wasnt a bricked MB, those are a pain and always "dangit" when it happens. Hopefully you didnt take out your MB yet =P

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Haha I did! Full test scenario happened. Still gonna swap the board out for the ASUS and sell the Tomahawk though.