MSI has put a revised budget Z890 motherboard into circulation, and the trade is plain: the MAG Z890 Tomahawk Wi-Fi II keeps much of the original Tomahawk’s platform hardware while dropping some connectivity. For PC builders, that means the same general Intel LGA 1851 base, with fewer high-end ports than the first version.
Tom’s Hardware reports that the board is listed at Newegg for $229.99, roughly in line with the earlier MAG Z890 Tomahawk Wi-Fi. That makes the refresh a slightly awkward product: MSI has reduced features, but the street price has not meaningfully moved away from the older model.
The two headline cuts are external I/O and wireless throughput. The new board has one Thunderbolt 4 Type-C port rated at 40 Gbps, down from two on the original, according to Tom’s Hardware. It also keeps Wi-Fi 7, but the listed wireless speed falls to 2.9 Gbps with 160 MHz support.
What MSI kept
The Tomahawk Wi-Fi II remains an ATX Z890 board for Intel’s Core Ultra 200S Plus processors. MSI lists a 19-phase voltage regulator design, including 16 90A smart power stages for Vcore. Tom’s Hardware said that power setup is sufficient for chips such as the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, and Core Ultra 9 285K, including overclocked use, provided the case has decent airflow.
Storage support is still broad for the price class. The board carries four M.2 sockets: one CPU-connected PCIe 5.0 x4 slot and three chipset-connected PCIe 4.0 x4 slots. One of the PCIe 4.0 M.2 sockets also supports SATA M.2 drives. Tom’s Hardware notes that the M.2, PCIe, USB, and SATA connections do not share lanes, so populating the board does not automatically steal bandwidth from another slot.
The expansion layout includes one reinforced PCIe 5.0 x16 slot connected to the CPU and two full-length PCIe 4.0 x4 slots connected through the chipset. The board also has four SATA 6 Gbps ports, with RAID support listed for both SATA and M.2 storage.
Rear I/O and builder conveniences
The rear panel includes HDMI 2.1, the single Thunderbolt 4 Type-C port with DisplayPort support, a 10 Gbps USB-C port, seven Type-A USB ports, BIOS Flashback and Clear CMOS buttons, Ethernet, Wi-Fi antenna connectors, and a small audio stack with SPDIF. The audio hardware uses a Realtek ALC1200P codec, which Tom’s Hardware describes as a last-generation solution rather than a premium current one.
MSI also kept its builder-friendly pieces: EZ Debug LEDs, a two-character EZ Digi-Debug display, tool-free M.2 clips, multiple fan headers, RGB and ARGB headers, and an EZ-Conn header that can consolidate fan, lighting, and USB 2.0 wiring through an included adapter.
- LGA 1851 socket and Intel Z890 chipset
- ATX form factor
- PCIe 5.0 x16 graphics slot
- One PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot and three PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots
- Four SATA ports
- Wi-Fi 7 listed up to 2.9 Gbps
- Three-year warranty
Tom’s Hardware said the board performed well overall using MSI’s Performance setting, landing in the middle of the tested Z890 group across gaming, rendering, encoding, and office workloads. That is the least surprising part of the board: modern motherboards at this tier rarely win benchmarks by magic, and this one appears competent rather than exotic.
MSI has also updated its firmware interface under the Click BIOS X name. Tom’s Hardware described the new layout as readable and logically arranged, with an EZ Mode for common controls such as XMP profiles and performance toggles.
The result is a capable budget Z890 board with a strange product-choice odor around it. If the older Tomahawk is available at the same price and a buyer needs the second Thunderbolt 4 port or faster wireless configuration, MSI’s refresh gives them less to like. If those cuts do not matter, the Tomahawk Wi-Fi II still offers the core expansion, storage, and power delivery expected from a $230 Intel Z890 motherboard.
This story draws on original reporting from Tom's Hardware.
