MSI Tomahawk Max vs. Mortar Max

f_X · February 29, 2020

Hi, I am deciding between those two motherboards.

From my point of view, these are the main differences:
- The Tomahawk is ATX, while the Mortar is mATX. Would the former be better in terms of cooling/airflow because attached components would be more spaced? The case will be the Phanteks P400A RGB, which comes with 3 front intake fans, and the CPU cooler will be the Scythe Fuma 2.
- Both motherboards seem to have the same or very similar VRMs, but the Tomahawk has an additional heat sink on the top part. I am currently considering a Ryzen 5 3600, but later, I might step up to a higher processor if the price/performance ratio is good. Also, although the 3600 doesn't allow for much overclocking, the memory modules may do. So, would this additional heat sink be helpful for a higher processor or memory overclocking?

These are other differences that may or may not be relevant:
- The Mortar has an additional M.2 slot, but if I ever put a second SSD, it would probably not run as fast as the one connected to the first slot, so this second slot is not too advantageous, right?
- The Tomahawk has one more 4-pin fan connector, which may be handy if I want to throw in an additional fan, but I can probably daisy-chain some fans to connect more to the Mortar, right?
- The Mortar has two additional USB 3.0 ports on the back and S/PDIF output, which is nice.
- The Tomahawk has a 4-pin water-pump-fan connector, but may not be relevant as I don't plan to use water cooling (at least for now).

So, if you have answers to my questions or additional thoughts, please let me know.

merco · February 29, 2020

41 minutes ago, f_X said:

The Tomahawk has a 4-pin water-pump-fan connector

That is just another PWM connector, in the bios you can also switch between DC and PWM mode for all of the connectors on that board.

42 minutes ago, f_X said:

it would probably not run as fast as the one connected to the first slot, so this second slot is not too advantageous, right?

That's correct it would run at 2GB/s max in the second slot, instead of 4GB/s max speed in the first slot. An SSD over sata port would be 0.6 GB/s though, ofc that is slower but probably cheaper too. Personally I'm happy with NVME drive for windows and normal SATA drive for games storage. I mostly play games so it's perfectly fine.

You also lose two PCI-E X1 slots if you go with the mortar, but I don't use those at all.

I went from an mATX to an ATX board and it was a bit more comfortable for me to build because of the extra space.

Other than that maybe check how big your cooler is in relation to your case and slots from the motherboards, since it might get in the way of your ram or graphics card.

f_X · February 29, 2020

2 hours ago, merco said:

I went from an mATX to an ATX board and it was a bit more comfortable for me to build because of the extra space.

Thanks for your reply. Did you notice if your temperatures changed when going from mATX to ATX. This in relation to my first point.

merco · February 29, 2020

43 minutes ago, f_X said:

Did you notice if your temperatures changed when going from mATX to ATX. This in relation to my first point.

I cant really say because I also switched out my case and I have improved airflow now. My temps are a lot better because of the mesh front, the only thing that stayed the same was my GPU and that went from 85°c to 60°c. I also cleaned it so that helped a bit as well, no idea if the form factor was of any help, but maybe it can shave off a few degrees. If I had to guess I would say a small improvement at best; case airflow is probably a lot more important when looking at temps.