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MSI MEG X570 UNIFY AM4 ATX Motherboard $438 +Shipping @ Skycomp

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Been trying to pick one up for a while now, usually goes for $459 - $500 + shipping

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  • I highly recommend this board, the VRM's are fantastic, the feature set is amazing, the 3x NMVe slots are perfect for SSD and HDDless editing rig.

    • 3x Gen4 M.2 slots is probably overkill for most people, but it looks decent - still a lot of cash for a desktop motherboard considering the other costs of the CPU and GPU.

  • How is this one compare to ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero ?

  • -3

    Say no to motherboard fans. Seems like all the X570 boards have them.

    • The fan never turns on in my MSi X570 Tomahawk

  • this costs more than the Tomahawk. What's the diff?

    • +1

      Extra NVMe gen 4 slot, 3 full length PCIe slots vs 2, 2.5G LAN
      -2 SATA sockets
      CMOS reset and BIOS flash buttons at the back - if your overclocking a lot, especially memory which can cause you to not boot, very useful

      Power and reset button on the motherboard, for people that test bench outside of the case. I had to use a screw driver to short the pins to do the same on my Tomahawk…

    • +1

      from reddit -

      Yep thanks for mentioning them. I was aware of it. The Tomahawk is intended to replace all of their terrible entry-level boards that have all the VRM temperature issues.

      The X570 Tomahawk will be the best $200 board and X570 Unify the best $300 board.

      Unify:

      Released in Oct 2019 as a way to implement all of their improvements on the X570 platform.
      Exact same 12-phase VRM found on the ACE and Creation. Although the heatsink is even larger so it runs a bit cooler than the ACE/Creation. Absolutely perfect VRM thermals (one of the best boards in the world in VRM temps) and reliability (excellent 12-phase power delivery), easily able to drive even a Ryzen 3950X fully overclocked.
      Tons of overclocking features (diagnostic display with error codes, reset button and power button on the board itself). On the back I/O panel it lets you clear the BIOS with a simple button press, and also has BIOS flashing support via the rear panel USB ports. In addition to this it also has the sucky "4x EZ Debug" LEDs.
      Built like a tank, very heavy, with reinforced board and shields.
      The price is insanely low for everything that they include on this board. They've managed to give us a low price despite having tons of features.
      https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MEG-X570-UNIFY/Specification
      "Up to 5000+ MHz" RAM in XMP mode.
      2x PCIe 4.0/ 3.0 x16 slots (PCI_E1, PCI_E3), running at PCIe 4.0 x16/x0 and x8/x8 modes respectively.
      1x PCIe 4.0/ 3.0 x16 slot (PCI_E5), running at x4 mode.
      2x PCIe 4.0/ 3.0 x1 slots. They cannot be used simultaneously, you can only use one of the x1 slots, since the Ryzen CPU doesn't have enough lanes to control both.
      Supports 2-way SLI and 3-way CrossFire GPUs.
      4x SATA 6Gb/s ports. The things that nobody uses anymore. Four is more than enough.
      2x M.2 slots (M2_2/ M2_3, Key M), supporting PCIe 4.0/ 3.0 x4 and SATA 6Gb/s, with form factors 2242/ 2260 /2280.
      1x M.2 slot (M2_1, Key M), supporting PCIe 4.0 x4, with form factors 2242/ 2260 /2280/ 22110.
      3x USB 3.2 Gen2 (SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps) ports (2 Type-A ports on the back panel, 1 Type-C internal connector).
      4x USB 3.2 Gen1 (SuperSpeed USB) ports through the internal USB 3.2 Gen1 connectors.
      6x USB 2.0 (High-speed USB) ports (2 Type-A ports on the back panel, 4 ports through the internal USB 2.0 connectors).
      Audio: Realtek® ALC1220 Codec.
      LAN: 1x Realtek® RTL8125 2.5 Gbps LAN controller. These are honestly fantastic. They've been making network cards as long as Intel and there's just old myths hanging around about them. But Realtek are great. This was released on May 30th, 2018: https://www.realtek.com/en/press-room/news-releases/item/rea…
      WiFi: World's best WiFi 6 card pre-installed (the Intel AX200), and can be removed and replaced with other cards (it's just hidden under the backplate shroud) to support any future WiFi standards after that. The AX200 supports 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax, MU-MINO Rx, 2.4GHz-5GHz (160MHz) up to 2.4Gbps, and Bluetooth® 5.1.
      Fan Connectors: 1x 4-pin CPU fan connector, 5x 4-pin system fan connectors, 1x 4-pin water-pump connector.
      RGB Connectors: 1x 4-pin RGB LED connector, 2x 3-pin RAINBOW LED connectors. 1x 3-pin CORSAIR connector.
      BIOS Security: The back panel has buttons for Clearing CMOS (without opening computer), and has a Flash BIOS button which lets you flash the BIOS from a USB port (even without any RAM or CPU installed). This is better than "dual bios" boards (which can bug out and switch to the wrong BIOS on their own). With this, you always have a way to restore and fix your BIOS no matter what happens.
      

      Tomahawk:

      The VRM and its cooling is great. Definitely the best in its $200 price class.
      No useful overclocking features (no reset button, no power button, no diagnostic error code display). It only has the 4 white "EZ Debug" LEDs which suck.
      https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MAG-X570-TOMAHAWK-WIFI/Speci…
      "Up to 4600+ MHz" RAM in XMP mode. So slightly less than they've rated their Unify board for, which suggests worse RAM voltage handling or something...
      1x PCIe 4.0/3.0 x16 slot (PCI_E1), running at PCIe 4.0 x16 mode.
      1x PCIe 4.0/3.0 x16 slot (PCI_E3), running at x4 mode.
      2x PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. Usable simultaneously.
      (So you lose an x16 slot and gain the ability to use both x1 slots at the same time; but I'd rather have an extra x16 slot (Unify) where I could stick in any card with any PCIe form factor!)
      Has a HDMI output (useless) which is for integrated Vega graphics in some cheap AMD processors.
      Supports 2-way CrossFire GPUs.
      6x SATA 6Gb/s ports (from AMD® X570 Chipset). They remove one M.2 slot to get some leftover lanes to use for two extra SATA ports. I dislike SATA and prefer M.2 storage... so this is a downgrade.
      1x M.2 slot (Key M), supporting PCIe 4.0 x4, with form factors 2242/ 2260 /2280/ 22110.
      1x M.2 slot (Key M), supporting PCIe 4.0 x4, with form factors 2242/ 2260 /2280.
      3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps ports (2 Type-A ports on the back panel, 1 Type-C internal connector).
      4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports available through the internal USB 3.2 Gen 1 connectors.
      6x USB 2.0 ports (2 Type-A ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB 2.0 connectors).
      (So in terms of USB ports, the two boards are identical.)
      Audio: Realtek® ALC1200 Codec. Lower quality than the Unify board's.
      LAN: 1x Realtek® RTL8125B 2.5Gbps LAN Controller. The "B" means it's the 2nd revision of the 8125, which is the same internally but slightly smaller and slightly less watts (uses less than 0.7 watts, but I would assume the Unify's 8125 is already at basically the same wattage so this doesn't matter). Release date was January 6th, 2020, which is why it's not included on the Unify: https://www.realtek.com/ja/component/zoo/item/realtek-to-dem…
      WiFi: Exact same AX200 and mounting location as the Unify, so they're equal here.
      Fan Connectors: 1x 4-pin CPU fan connector, 4x 4-pin system fan connectors, 1x 4-pin water-pump connector. So there's one less system fan connector on this board compared to Unify, which matters to me since I have a 5-fan case.
      RGB Connectors: 2x 4-pin RGB LED connectors, 2x 3-pin RAINBOW LED connectors. So this board removes the CORSAIR LED connector and adds an extra RGB LED connector. Meh, I don't care either way.
      BIOS Security: Zero. There are no back-panel flashing features/buttons like the Unify board has.
      Other than this, the rear IO plate is basically the same as Unify, with some slight rearranging of ports in an uglier way (the USB ports on the Tomahawk are all over the place whereas they are all grouped on the Unify). In fact, the Tomahawk's USB 2.0 ports are retardedly placed in a way that they BLOCK THE WIFI ANTENNAS. Lol.
      

      There's no doubt that the Tomahawk is extreme value at $200, but it loses out on a few things that make it impossible for me. Losing an x16 PCIe slot. Losing an M.2 SSD slot. Adding two extra SATA that I don't want. Losing the advanced overclocking features. Losing the BIOS flashing/security features and easy rear panel reset without opening the computer. Downgrading the audio. Adding an ugly HDMI port that I won't use. Re-arranging the back I/O plate in a way that obscures the WiFi antennas. And losing a case fan connector pin that I need.

      All those extras on the Unify are worth +$100 for me.

      I hope this comparison helps you too, since you own the Unify! :-)

  • The tomahawk is around $350 this is $500.

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