Supports AMD RYZEN Series Processors and 7th Gen A-series/AthlonTM Processors for socket AM4
Supports DDR4-3200+(OC) Memory
Best virtual reality game experience without latency
Gaming LAN with LAN Protect
In-Game Weapons: Game Boost, GAMING Hotkey, X-Boost, Xsplit Gamecaster
The MSI B350M Mortar is a "high end" micro ATX board that has a few drawbacks that hold it back.
First, the positives:
Build quality: The Mortar is very well built. The board itself is sturdy and doesn't flex much, while having a neat matte finish over the PCB. People building in tight cases will also be happy to know that the solder joints or other edges and points of the board aren't sharp enough to cut you. MSI also reinforced the PCIE X16 slot, giving your GPU more support and rigidity.
Ample connectivity: This MSI board goes above and beyond to make sure you have as many ports and connections as you need to get your system going. This includes 4 PWM fan headers, 4 DIMM slots, optical audio, and a rear USB 3.1 Type C connection.
Memory "Try It!" feature: Many of the XMPs that come with your DRAM won't be configured to work well with Ryzen, which would normally make you manually overclock it. With MSI boards, you can use the "Memory Try It!" feature where you can easily select from around a dozen RAM profiles to get your RAM working quickly. Perhaps for OCN this is not a big feature, but for those who don't know much about RAM overclocking or are more casual users, this is a huge time saver.
PCIE Placement: The PCIE x16 slot is placed the closest to the CPU, ensuring that bigger cards can still fit and that our GPUs are given as much breathing space as possible. This may seem like an odd thing to list, but many other AM4 micro ATX boards put the x16 slot in a really poor location.
Seems neat, right? Unfortunately, like all ?ATX AM4 boards, it has flaws that you should consider before buying:
VRM: The VRM uses some rather high quality MOSFETs and chokes, but unfortunately you're only given 4 phases for the VCORE. This is fine for RYZEN 3 and RYZEN 5 processors, but RYZEN 7 owners should exercise caution while overclocking, making sure not to overwhelm the VRM.
AEGSA lag: Unfortunately, MSI has been pretty behind when it comes to rolling out the latest AEGSA to their boards. At the time this was written, the B350 Tomahawk (which is essentially the ATX version of this board) just now received a BIOS with AEGSA 10.0.6, but as far as I know none of their micro ATX boards have received it yet. Therefore, memory support is going to be fairly far behind other vendors.
Slow POST: This board likes to take its time while POSTing which is going to add a significant amount of time to the booting process. This is not the end of the world, but getting a NVMe drive for this board as a boot drive will be pointless.
First POST quirks: This board is really odd when it comes to trying to get that first POST. Before trying to test boot with this board, i'd suggest clearing the CMOS and booting with only a single stick of RAM. Sometimes, that first boot into the BIOS can take as much as 10 minutes, so keep that in mind.
If you value hardware quality over the quality of the software/firmware support, this is the board to get for you. If a fast boot time, a quick setup, and being on the bleeding edge is important, then you should pass on this board and get the ASROCK AB350M PRO4 instead.
UPDATE (12/7/2018) : This board now has AEGSA 10.0.6 as of July 4 as part of MSI's rollout. Oversight by me.
Pros
Cons
High quality components, ample connectivity, Optimal PCIE placement
Only 4 VCORE phases, slow to POST, behind on AEGSA
Ratings
Overall
4
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