MSI X570 Tomahawk review: possibly the best $200 X570

I am just waiting for ComboAM4PIV2 1.2.0.0 to be released. I am still on the old FW and PBO with Curve Optimizer still don't work and I am getting blue screen all the time.
 
AGESA 1.1.9.0 BIOS coming soon...key feature- improved stability for 1800- 2000Mhz Infinity Fabric...time-stamped video below...

 
polonyc2 said:
AGESA 1.1.9.0 BIOS coming soon...key feature- improved stability for 1800- 2000Mhz Infinity Fabric...time-stamped video below...

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Ah, if Microsoft is messing with low-power states and AMD is trying to conform, that would help explain why the bios settings have been unstable. I never got them to work proper on Haswell with a good overclock, so I'm not above disabling them for now.
 
MSI & ASUS Prep Up AMD AGESA 1.2.0.0 BIOS Firmware For 500 & 400 Series Motherboards

Both MSI & ASUS have announced that their AGESA 1.2.0.0 BIOS Firmware for AMD 500 & 400 lines of motherboards will be out soon...the improvements both have listed mentions optimized support and compatibility for Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPUs and added Resizable-BAR functionality with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 & AMD Radeon RX 6000 series processors...

The AMD Curve Optimizer support will be carried over from AGESA 1.1.9.0 BIOS Firmware...

https://wccftech.com/msi-asus-amd-agesa-1-2-0-0-bios-firmware-for-500-400-series-motherboards/
 
techie81 said:
Nice they must have just posted that this morning. They also got rid of the beta bios from 1/4. Anyone try it yet?
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The new v1.50 works fine for me. Looks like better XMP memory timings too!

ETA: Did have one issue.... this new BIOS killed my MS Office activation, not Win-10 though.
Never had that happen before. Will have to buy another cheap Office key.

.
 
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Just updated to 7C84v15 from 7C84v151 and my memory overclock is no longer stable, at all. Was previously running 3800/1900 with CL14 timings (Samsung b die). I've lowered the RAM down to so far 3400 and still not stable....BSOD with any benchmark. this is annoying..

Edit: Another observation. I tried to use the XMP Profile to see if that would work, and it does however it's not reading the timings right at all. This memory is 3600MHz 17-18-18-38 out the box, but it's giving me 18-18-18-38. If I stick CL 17 in there it BSODs. Not to mention my memory benchmarks are wayyyyy down. I think I'm going back to the previous bios

Edit 2: I think I've narrowed it down to Command Rate. Entirely unstable at 1T, 2T works fine (and explains why the odd number CL 17 gets moved to CL 18).

Something else I'm seeing is the older bios I was on has a newer bios version number than current. 1.51 (old one) vs 1.5 (newest)
 
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They changed the memory timings so it's very likely that some people will have to use different settings.
Use the beta 1.51 if that worked better for you.

On the version numbers.... 1.51 was a beta version that they did not elect to make into a release version.
The beta versions do not count if they were not released.

The release versions were 1.4 and then 1.5.

.
 
Spartacus said:
They changed the memory timings so it's very likely that some people will have to use different settings.
Use the beta 1.51 if that worked better for you.

On the version numbers.... 1.51 was a beta version that they did not elect to make into a release version.
The beta versions do not count if they were not released.

The release versions were 1.4 and then 1.5.

.
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After reverting my bios back to 1.51 I was still crashing. I missed 1 single setting...completely forgot I had to use Geardown Mode to achieve those clocks. After this - 1.5 is working great. There goes this evening lol.

I wish I didn't have to use Geardown Mode - hurts the memory bandwidth. Posts in 1T it just doesn't like to be stressed

gp9tBP7.png
 
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I'll give it a go tomorrow, finally got my hands on a 5900X as well.
 
Welp I was greeted this morning by this. Already have bioses 15 and the beta 161 at the ready. Waiting on the 5800X and my waterblock.
IMG_20210314_152213.jpg
 
Snagged one of these (and a 5800x) at Microcenter on Friday. They were running some minor discounts, but I'd been meaning to snag one anyway. So far, so good. Just running everything via stock and XMP thus far, but will tinker with performance options later in the week.
At first the board LED's were driving me nuts, but discovered that the "Dragon Center" luckily let me disable 'em without having to keep running that (horrid) program running all of the time.
 
Domingo said:
Snagged one of these (and a 5800x) at Microcenter on Friday. They were running some minor discounts, but I'd been meaning to snag one anyway. So far, so good. Just running everything via stock and XMP thus far, but will tinker with performance options later in the week.
At first the board LED's were driving me nuts, but discovered that the "Dragon Center" luckily let me disable 'em without having to keep running that (horrid) program running all of the time.
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Good to know! I dislike having the LED's running all the time. It would drive me crazy. Wished i had an MC close by. Closest one is 4hrs one way :( Keep us posted on those clocks! I know I'm gonna clock mine to the moon! :ROFLMAO:
 
If you go into the 'normie' BIOS mode there is a toggle to disable those LEDs right on the main page. I've yet to find the setting in the advance view. I believe the default key to switch between normal & advance BIOS is F7. Once you disable it in normal it persists if you go back into Advance.
 
polonyc2 said:
AMD is saying that this new BIOS not only fixes the L3 cache performance issue but also improves gaming performance...Shadow of The Tomb Raider with 1.2.0.1 BIOS Firmware boosts performance by up to 17% (CPU average)...new firmware also enables Smart Access Memory support for AMD Ryzen 3000 CPU's...

https://wccftech.com/msi-releases-amd-agesa-1-2-0-1-bios-firmware-for-x570-b550-a520-motherboard/

View attachment 337241
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I mine Monero in my spare time. I noticed a hash rate increase from about 14,200 H/s to 15,500 H/s. That's a pretty decent gain after switching to 1.2.0.1.

Edit: It appears that if you were on AGESA 1.2.0.0 which had a bug with L3 cache performance this will benefit you, prior versions do not appear to be affected by this bug.
 
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do MSI X570 boards support Resizable BAR?...I'm confused...the January BIOS from MSI states: 'Support S.A.M technology (Re-size BAR function) to enhance GPU performance for AMD Radeon RX 6000 series'

the fact that they only mentioned AMD made me think another BIOS update would be required for Nvidia cards...so I'm confused as to whether the January update added support for Resizable BAR across both AMD and Nvidia or if that only applied to AMD cards and another BIOS would be required for Nvidia cards
 
Anyone have issues using XMP with this board? Using run of the mill t-force ddr4 and system seemed less stable using XMP. My BIOS is older, I should update it.
 
MrSneis said:
Anyone have issues using XMP with this board? Using run of the mill t-force ddr4 and system seemed less stable using XMP. My BIOS is older, I should update it.
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No trouble with XMP, but I always use GSkill memory.
I use their memory on all of my systems, never an issue.

Hopefully the BIOS update works for you.

.
 
Also remember the 1.2.0.1 beta bios has the fix for the global C state hitching problem for USB that is pretty wide spread at this point
 
polonyc2 said:
do MSI X570 boards support Resizable BAR?...I'm confused...the January BIOS from MSI states: 'Support S.A.M technology (Re-size BAR function) to enhance GPU performance for AMD Radeon RX 6000 series'

the fact that they only mentioned AMD made me think another BIOS update would be required for Nvidia cards...so I'm confused as to whether the January update added support for Resizable BAR across both AMD and Nvidia or if that only applied to AMD cards and another BIOS would be required for Nvidia cards
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Yeah, it does. I got everything rolling on Tuesday. At least with my card (EVGA 3090) it required an update to Precision X1. PX1 in turn updated my card's firmware AND the card's BIOS. The motherboard box was already checked and it claims that Resizable BAR is now enabled.

EDIT: For what it's worth, I wouldn't try running AIDA64 stress tests after enabling resizable BAR. At least not with "stress GPU" enabled. It pushes everything to 100% and then stops responding so that you can't stop it! You have to end the process or it just keeps going and going.
 
Domingo said:
Yeah, it does. I got everything rolling on Tuesday. At least with my card (EVGA 3090) it required an update to Precision X1. PX1 in turn updated my card's firmware AND the card's BIOS. The motherboard box was already checked and it claims that Resizable BAR is now enabled.
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I read about this when I first bought my EVGA 3080...is there any way of preventing Precision from updating the firmware of the card?...does this apply to all manufacturers- meaning will it update the firmware and BIOS of all Ampere cards?...which BIOS does it update it to- the latest one with the Resizable Bar update or an earlier one?...does this happen anytime you open Precision- it checks for and updates to the latest firmware/BIOS?

why is Precision so embedded deep within Ampere's architecture where it automatically updates the BIOS?
 
polonyc2 said:
I read about this when I first bought my EVGA 3080...is there any way of preventing Precision from updating the firmware of the card?...does this apply to all manufacturers- meaning will it update the firmware and BIOS of all Ampere cards?...which BIOS does it update it to- the latest one with the Resizable Bar update or an earlier one?...does this happen anytime you open Precision- it checks for and updates to the latest firmware/BIOS?

why is Precision so embedded deep within Ampere's architecture where it automatically updates the BIOS?
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To my knowledge it only applies to EVGA cards, but there's no way to avoid it. The program updates you to whatever the latest one embedded in the program is. If you don't want to update your BIOS/Firmware (or if you want to use custom ones), you could always use MSI Afterburner instead. It'll do most of the same things, but sans the updates. I think you still need it to control the LED's, although I'm sure there are other programs that can potentially do that.
Option 2 would be to use an older version of PX1, too. You can download older versions of the program on MSI's website. The program doesn't seem to be downloading the updates, but instead seems to have them stored locally. If that's the case, older versions wouldn't have the latest update.
 
still no AMD AGESA 1.2.0.1 Patch A for the X570 Tomahawk...isn't 1.2.0.2 supposed to be released soon as well?
 
To answer polonyc2's question first: the AGESA 1.2.0.2 is slated for release sometime this month in April. Only question at this point will be is the BIOS with AGESA 1.2.0.2 by the end of April still be considered a BETA BIOS or FP (Final Production) BIOS? As for the MSI MAG X570 Tomahawk Wi-Fi...for the $200 price range of the board it is the best mobo in its price range when it comes to feature set, PowerVRM setup, etc. My biggest gripe with the mobo to this day: you can almost never find the board available at Amazon or Newegg and when you can it is usually (not always been usually) sold at above MSRP. The MSRP to the best of my knowledge is $199.99 for this board. Right now though? It usually sells at between $245-$260. Still a good price but not MSRP. Just my thoughts and until next time I am out!
 
Nebulous said:
There was someone selling one for $200 OBO.

https://hardforum.com/threads/fs-msi-x570-tomahawk-motherboard-brand-new.2009306/


I don't think you're going to find a better deal on an outstanding board. I paid $230 shipped for mine.
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Same - mid-November last year, I paid $232 ($220+tax) sold and shipped by Amazon.

Had to wait a couple of months before I was able to get a 5800X, and I gotta say, I was a bit apprehensive about going the AMD route again after reading some of the various X570/5000 series woes, but my system has been running absolutely rock solid stable, and the only things I've done in BIOS is enable XMP for my DDR4-3600 and make sure that CSM was disabled (running in UEFI only mode).
This was less checking/changing of BIOS settings than my Z77 + i7-3770K, which was minimal...a system that I used since release day and is still running as my kids gaming PC.
Best motherboard I've ever used, and I came from a Z77 Sabertooth ($240 in 2012) then a Z77 Gene V ($200 in 2013) when I decided to downsize my 3770K to a uATX build, which are both top-notch, IMO.

With only a GPU upgrade or two down the road, I foresee no issues with the X570 Tomahawk being able to go the distance to outpace my 8.5 years usage cycle of the 3770K.
...maybe also an upgrade to a 5950X when they're older and cheaper.
 
I got lucky with my board and 5800X. The chip I bought from my best bud as he purchased 2 of them along with a 3900XT. The board I got from Amazon when it was a special. I upgraded from a Z270/7700K I had since day 1. I'm quite impressed with the new AMD. Last AMD I had was during the 939 days (FX55). I might get a 5950X if the price is right ;)

Like you I'm waiting on a new GPU so for the time being my 1070 will have to do.
 
I ended up getting mine at Microcenter for $239, but they knocked $20 off the 5800X since I bought a motherboard, too. That was the best price I could find a few weeks ago. I figure $15-20 is pocket change in the long run and this board seemed to have the most bang for the buck by far.
 
RareAir23 said:
To answer polonyc2's question first: the AGESA 1.2.0.2 is slated for release sometime this month in April. Only question at this point will be is the BIOS with AGESA 1.2.0.2 by the end of April still be considered a BETA BIOS or FP (Final Production) BIOS?
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but what about 1.2.0.1 Patch A?
 
I saw that this morning too, waiting for some folks to try it out before I update.
 
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