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[Music]
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foreign
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Hook is one of my favorite boards to
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review powerful and focused it is the mo
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the board that everybody's eye is set on
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season after season if you've seen a
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gaming computer uh around your
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neighborhood chances are one of them is
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powered by a tomahawk of some kind today
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we are reviewing the highly weighted mag
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x670 heat to my Oak from MSI a board
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with a long tradition of Hardcore gaming
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focused engineering and badassery and
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fun fact for you the sum of badassery is
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while supporting my channel simply join
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or simply by the most amazing Tech
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inspired clothing lines in the world and
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this will make you hotter better and
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well all overall more attractive
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together
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as usual the egg is a more budget minded
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family of Pro Gamer products MSI
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produces and the tomahawk it's shining
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star and this here is particularly
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interesting because
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the tomahawk gets the x670e treatment so
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it comes with ddr5 ram for the first
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time and a pcie 5.0 abilities which
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should uh rocket to Tomahawk two new
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heights do you know what a down here to
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my hook uh rocket that we've seen uh
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before and this season is so much more
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special because uh we get an x670
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e-powered motherboard for well close to
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300 bucks which is pretty rare these
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days now starting with the obvious well
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we do have a very premium eight PCB
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layers which is a first for the tomahawk
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and thus bring up its value in terms of
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lifespan in terms of stability thanks to
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a greater pcie signal insulation but
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also in terms of vrm heat diffusion a
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big instant premium boost
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for the tomahawk on this feature alone
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design wise we stay in a very sober and
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familiar dark military theme MSI does
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take this opportunity to demonstrate its
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app absolute metallic control showing of
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different brushing techniques no
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embedded or hidden RGB strips underlying
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a heavy duty metallic overall feel but
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for the ones who still want to shine we
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do have four Mystic compliant RGB
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connectors two of which are addressable
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CPU socketwise the X 670e to milk is
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powered by amd's am5 CPU socket
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featuring a 1718 pin LGA which obviously
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greatly increases the CPU bandwidths and
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worst noting and as usual it is now
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clearer than ever that this CPU socket
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will be here for a long long time to be
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uh powering three or four generations of
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ryzen processors so in general getting
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one of those x670 or E powered
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motherboards is a sound future proofing
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investment now vrm wise well the
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tomahawk boasts an impressive 1360 amps
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organized in a 14 plus 3 ATM direct
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faces amongst which 1120 are CPU Centric
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and that will give the tomahawk one of
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the best overclocking abilities
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available at this price range did not
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quite manage to clock my ryzen 7900x up
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to 5.7 gigahertz but managed to keep it
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at a very solid 5.6 gigahertz therefore
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overclocking wise you're definitely in
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the green pulling wise sort of milk is
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equipped with rather well-sized cooling
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blocks the main one shows a large
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supportive wall to support and transfer
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excess heat towards its extended
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radiating plate the side block is
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nothing but a large chunk of aluminum
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with five protuberating winglets
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providing a greater radiating area now
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both of the blocks features are now very
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standard double contact design which
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provides a direct thermal padded contact
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to boost power stages and chokes and the
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least we can say about those blocks is
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that they do a great job at handling
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um uh or managing intense workload heat
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with the ryzen 7900x running at 5.6
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gigahertz under an hour-long synthetic
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load our main block kept to the 50
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degree celsius bar safe at all time the
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side block struggled a bit more but did
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manage to stabilize temps below 55
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degrees Celsius more often than not
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which is not a bad results at all and
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that's where having a copper pipe to
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link and spread the excess heat equally
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amongst boost blocks would have been
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useful in my opinion overall uh nothing
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the tomahawk should be shy or ashamed
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about we have a very responsive agile
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efficient vrm which can be safely be
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used with a medium and upper tier
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processor so B plus is my grade and the
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ryzen 7 and above my recommendation for
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this vrm now memory wise our board can
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support up to 196 gigabytes of ddr5 RAM
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organized in a dual Channel
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configuration and clickable up to a very
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conservative 6 gigahertz with that being
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the Uber fast monstrous Ram Master uh I
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don't know what I'm saying so tomorrow
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Ram abilities will do plenty good for
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your daily gaming needs not the best bug
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for memory intensive tasks such as 3D
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rendering but perfect for heavy AAA
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gaming staying in the memory are
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Tomahawk supports four m.2 solicit draft
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connectors the CPU linked one is the
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only one benefiting from the pcie 5.0
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standard and can swap data up to a very
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fast 128 gigabit per second it also
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benefited from all the cooling attention
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MSI could give it it gets the Dual sided
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thermal pad treatment as well as double
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level hit Shields which are not too much
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knowing how hot PCI 5.0 drivers can get
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are three other m.2 solicit drives all
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run at 4 pce Lanes at pcie 4 standard
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meaning that they can swap data up to
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plenty fast 64gbps second individually
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worth nothing the last tick shares
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bandwidth with the last 16 expansion
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slot and will run at high speed if the
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expansion slot is used now stick two and
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three share a rather small thermal
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padded he chilled in my opinion which
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keep them cool in the day-to-day normal
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usage but I would not advise to pair
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this two in a red configuration as I
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doubt that this thermal plate would keep
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them away from thermal throttling the
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last m.2 connector gets no heat shield
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at all which is surprisingly given the
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300 bucks price tag of this board and I
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frankly do not understand why
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it at all shares bandwidths with the
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last uh 16 pcae export and why the 16
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PCA export exists anyways but I'll cover
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that in in two seconds I promise finally
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I need to mention that all of our m.2
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connectors are equipped with its uh well
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MSI very own two less looking mechanism
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which I do find weak poorly designed and
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hard to use when compared to what Asus
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or gigabyte came up with yeah overall
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not a win for MSI at least I can say PCA
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5.0 integration is rather limited with
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only one PC 5.0 enable m.2 solid Drive
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connector which when you compare with
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other
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x670e powered motherboard is well a bit
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short now export wise we have four PC
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slots one Bachelor and three 16 slots
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with different speeds as usual only the
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closest one to your CPU features a full
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16 CPU linked pce lens and can swap up
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to 64 gigabytes per second fuel pcae 5.0
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standard obviously this is where you'd
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want to put your GPU for optimal
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performances hence the metallic
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reinforcement the other slots are a
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match of standard and speeds the only
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thing that having that many slots
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achieve is diluting the available board
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bandwidth in exports which are too many
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and too slow to truly bring any value
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and what I prefer to see only two 16 pce
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slots so that you know we have say
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16 and 4 or even an 8 pcie 5.0 shared
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bandwidth so that we can have a correct
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dual GPU support instead of having those
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four exports and different speeds coming
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from different places
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it just absolutely makes no sense to me
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not that having two gpus will ever do
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something uh gaming wise for you but
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it'll make just more sense to me and add
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a little bit of production value to the
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motherboard so yeah now back I O wise
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first let me know the presence of an
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integrated back IO which is always a
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good sign especially here and starting
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from the left we have a flash bias
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button for a CPU less bias update always
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good to have and especially here and
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you'll understand why at the end of this
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review why this thing saved my life and
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it shouldn't next we have three display
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outputs One display port HDMI and a type
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c which utilize at least one PCI 5.0
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Lane to provide both data Swap and
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graphical output if needed a new little
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feature I do like next we have four USB
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3.2 USB plugs including that last type c
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we just saw all running a 10 gigabit per
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second except this one which runs a dual
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Channel and can swap data up to 20
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gigabit per second pretty much standard
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or days four or five gigabit USB plugs a
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2.5 GB bit surge protected land nothing
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surprising here our Dual Band Wi-Fi 6E
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able to transmit in the much cleaner and
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faster 6 gigahertz radio spectrum and
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finally a aging yet respectable 7.1
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Channel Realtek ALC 1200 codec serviced
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by an adequate 500 micro farads worth of
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capacitors now not the best anymore but
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with a much thicker 8 layers PCB board
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we can count on a well insulated tracing
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which should produce in turn a better
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than average gaming sound environment as
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well as a clear and static free
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recording experience overall
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okay back IO which is you know
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adequately equipped MSI definitely did
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not take any risks yeah it's not Uber
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Uber surprising but yeah it'll cover
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your needs for the 99.99 of the viewer
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of the users out there now chipset wise
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well our to my hook is powered by amd's
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brand new x600 70E cheap set which comes
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in a 2 7 Watts prompt 21 chips and
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placed right next to another which is
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not the most recommended location for me
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I'd like to see them in opposite sides
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of the board like Asus does but in this
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case it did not make any problem because
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MSI did have the good sense of providing
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a rather thick heat shield which does a
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great job at keeping our chipsets below
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40 degrees celsius at all time on the
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inside well we do have a bunch of PC
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lines going in three different PCA
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standard Direction but what really set
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apart the x670e is that it can use more
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PC 5.0 Lanes from the CPU which in turn
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allows boards like this to impose a lot
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more PCA 5.0 bandwidth than it's watered
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down x670 variants so if this board
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lacks PCA 5.0 integration any
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it definitely is not the chipset fault
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now front panel connector wise well
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there is really nothing new here we have
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our two second generation USB connectors
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for monitoring r25 gigabit per second
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front panel connector and a type c able
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to transfer up to 10 gigabit per second
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and no Thunderbolt 4 which for a board
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of this pricing is understandable
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because yeah Thunderbolt 4 like 60 to
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100 dollars just to integrate
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fun fact for it you know cooling wise
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well the Tomato cake has a healthy 8pwm
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fans one of which can support a water
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pump which is more than enough to be
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fair to support most of available
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cooling solutions out there and uh in
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par with a single GPU status of the
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tomahawk and apart from that not much
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Enthusiast friendly feature no temp
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sensors no flow sensors so definitely
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not custom water cooling platform per se
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more like of a classic you know more uh
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yeah air all-in-one cooling now
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troubleshooting wise well we seen the
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very basic the tomahawk usually offers
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meaning our first eight easy debugger
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here to Signal us the main stages of our
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boot but other than that well you're on
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your own and that is really problematic
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because for one
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when you take this motherboard out of
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the box and you put a processor and you
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try to boot it as as you are rightfully
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entitled to think so it will not will
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give you the yellow red double light
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meaning that it's
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and you need to update the bias right
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away from their website before the first
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boot to Hope see something coming alive
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now that is a big bad point in my book I
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I really believe so two when my board
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was out of electricity out of power for
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a few hours what happened when I tried
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to reboot it and Benchmark the vrm it
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breaks itself again went back to yellow
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red light had to reinstall the latest
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bias and then it booted again and I
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cannot understand why it's so flimsy why
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it's so unstable and coming from MSI
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they always had some kind of problems
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with their bios in the past two to three
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years but that bad
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I I mean I know Ace is also uh you know
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uh had their problem with booting with
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x670 e-powered motherboard but MSI
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should really take a hint make sure
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everything is updated to the last latest
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possible bias and give us some things
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stable it's almost unforgivable in my
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view now in conclusion the mag x670 heat
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to my hook will cost you around 300
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bucks before taxes and despite coming
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with quantities of hope this thing was a
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big big disappointment now how
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disappointed do I feel you'll never know
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we had a 300 bucks X 670 The powered
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motherboard it was a tomahawk and and
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truth is I find it messy shaky and
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frankly underwhelming we have that
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strange pcie export menu which again
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could have been Consolidated in one fast
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second GPU slot it utterly fails to use
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all of the x670e abilities and does a
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rather poor job in terms of PC 5.0
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integration basically this board could
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have been powered by an x670 chipset or
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a b650e chips that you would not have
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known or seen any differences but most
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importantly this thing got me sweating
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bullets uh at every boot running bias
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reinstallation over installation just
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hoping it would not break itself again
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and I could go on now don't get me wrong
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I do find the vrm adequate and frankly
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very powerful but that is one of the
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very few things I am happy with this
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Tomahawk I'll say this it's a good gamer
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board but there are so many missed
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opportunities
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that it's sad for someone who's been
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reviewing tomahawks for the past six
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years and being constantly surprised
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happily surprised and defending its name
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so
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um I don't know what happened but
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there's definitely a lack of mapping and
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Engineering coming from MSI on this one
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there's also a lack of imagination I
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mean most importantly and ambition to
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fully Express the potential that I've
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seen on this motherboard it simply does
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not excite as much as previously
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released models and sure every reviewers
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out there probably gave a Stellar review
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of this motherboard but I do suspect and
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I'm gonna get torched for this but I
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like it that they want to remain in
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msi's good little reviewing papers so
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that they can keep getting sampling
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thing is I bought this board so whatever
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happened to me is probably going to
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happen to you I cannot blame this on a
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bad sampling or coming from you know RMA
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or stuff like that this was bought on on
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in a store like you will so
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as far as my money goes this is
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definitely one place it does not want to
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be
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foreign
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