Ryzen 5 3600 with MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX - issue or fine?

Marsman · 5 Sep 2019 at 18:45

kmetek said:
this board or MSI B450 GAMING PLUS MAX?

I think the Tomahawk is seen as better choice if you plan to overclock, because the heat sinks are a bit better for cooling; otherwise comes down to which you prefer.

Tomahawk also has USB C.

kmetek · 5 Sep 2019 at 22:37

thanks

MartinPrince · 6 Sep 2019 at 12:08

Chrisc said:
What is the difference between a normal b450 and the Max boards? ive started to get really impatient with MSI on waiting for a bios to properly support my Ryzen 3000 chip

Apart from the out of box support for Ryzen 3000, the bios also looks different. The MAX has the red themed click bios which is more graphically driven. The non MAX will have a standard looking dark grey and white bios. The mouse still works in it but it is just a standard looking bios.

MartinPrince · 6 Sep 2019 at 12:11

WT3-Bey said:
This is the Mobo I have. I bought the last one.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-b450-tomahawk-max-socket-am4-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-33t-ms.html

So after a bit more playing, it seems like one stick is faulty. So RMAing..

Before returning the RAM double check the voltage given to the sticks. Even when you set XMP I've noticed the Tomahawk was still only giving 1.22v instead of the default 1.35v. I was having odd crashes and was wondering why when everthing was at stock. It turned out to be the lack of volatge being supplied to the RAM, which I had to go in and set manually. After that is was perfect.

Chrisc · 6 Sep 2019 at 12:51

MartinPrince said:
Apart from the out of box support for Ryzen 3000, the bios also looks different. The MAX has the red themed click bios which is more graphically driven. The non MAX will have a standard looking dark grey and white bios. The mouse still works in it but it is just a standard looking bios.

Cheers, i believe the normal b450 bios fix for the 3000 chips should be released by MSI in the next two weeks.

Old Man · 17 Sep 2019 at 08:41

Well, my son is going to finally upgrade my system today, so I need to know if it's ok to have the cpu, ram, graphics card installed when you upload the bios ?

I have seen conflicting reports on what people have gone through (as a whole), so if you can help out with the answer for this today, it'd be a big help.

TY

an0nym0us · 17 Sep 2019 at 09:15

The BIOS that ships with the MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX should be able to boot up a 3rd gen Ryzen CPU without issue. I'd suggest connecting the PSU, CPU, RAM and GPU only, then update the BIOS from within the BIOS itself using MSI's M-Flash.

WT3-Bey · 17 Sep 2019 at 09:20

My Ryzen 3600 and MSI B450 Tomahawk Max worked straight out the boxes, no flash required.

There is a newer bios though. Which can be flashed very easy.

Old Man · 17 Sep 2019 at 09:27

TY to you both, very helpful.

peterwalkley · 18 Sep 2019 at 15:40

I did need to flash to the more recent 7C02v32 BIOS as I was getting random reboots while trying to install windows but no issues since. The BIOS release notes were about improving memory compatibility so I guess I'd just picked poorly.

bertybenno · 19 Sep 2019 at 14:50

Hi have posted this elsewhere, but there's a new bios on msi support page to address the pbo, it fixed my 3600x I now get 4.4 on a single core

an0nym0us · 19 Sep 2019 at 14:54

bertybenno said:
Hi have posted this elsewhere, but there's a new bios on msi support page to address the pbo, it fixed my 3600x I now get 4.4 on a single core

AGESA 1.0.0.3 ABBA was supposed to fix the boost clock problems. Good to hear it's working.

chili · 23 Sep 2019 at 23:53

WT3-Bey said:
My tomahawk max won’t boot with 16gb RAM, but will with 8gb, tried both sticks individually, both worked. Hopefully this will be resolved after I update bios. Very slow post occasionally, like over a minute. Other than that it worked fine.

My build kept crashing during windows install flashed bios and now all good, bios addressed ram stability issues

fastwunz · 3 Oct 2019 at 19:12

Ive got my B450 MAX coming tomorrow along with a 3600x and 16gb ram.

I really dont to have to update the bios - hopefully it works out of the box

Destination · 3 Oct 2019 at 22:24

First thing i am doing when i build tomorrow or Saturday will be flash to that most recent BIOS, vital for the smooth running of things imo.

EssexBoy · 3 Oct 2019 at 23:15

fastwunz said:
Ive got my B450 MAX coming tomorrow along with a 3600x and 16gb ram.

I really dont to have to update the bios - hopefully it works out of the box

It does don't worry.

Kirby Wurm · 22 Oct 2019 at 03:02

I'll shortly be ordering one of these. I've had to return a MSI B450 Pro Carbon AC as it refused to flash using the USB port without CPU/GFX card. It went through the process once fine but then wouldn't POST and kept displaying the CPU error LED once I'd installed all the hardware. I thought it may be the processer (3600) but the mobo wouldn't even flash the BIOS again (most users are able to do this irrespective of the error codes).

While I hope the MAX will run out of the box I would probably prefer the newer BIOS that addressed boost clocks. I've updated a BIOS loads of times in the past but this experience has made me a little reluctant to do so (I'm building the system for my wife's friend's son).

MegaPinches · 22 Oct 2019 at 16:22

I got my setup today, all working fine with latest bios, did what someone above suggested, updated bios before even installing drives and windows.

Only issue I got is I can't turn off CSM mode as I get this:

any idea's?

Kirby Wurm · 22 Oct 2019 at 21:15

Fortunately not too big an issue. I'll definitely update the BIOS with a bare ones setup (especially as I have purchased an M.2 NVME SSD for the build which anecdotal evidence suggests may interfere with the process.

jeff innes · 15 Jun 2020 at 09:56

I have build here is nice i think its just bios update i need cuz its only giving me 547mhz lol
ryzen 5 3600
msi 450 tomahawk max
corsair vengeance rbg pro 32gb 3200mhz ram
asus rog strix gaming nvidia geforce 2070 super
750w bronze plus evga psu

everything is up and running fine other than that i only have the 547mhz on processor count so everything loads slowly