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Review: MSI B350M Mortar

by Tarinder Sandhu on 21 February 2018, 14:00

Tags: MSI, AMD (NYSE:AMD)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qadqua

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Conclusion

This is still very much a budget board, probably aimed more towards the user looking at the cheaper end of the AMD chip market...

MSI carefully pitches the B350M Mortar at about 10 per cent higher than the cheapest micro-ATX boards based on AMD's second-rung chipset. Priced at around £80, that extra tenner or so offers up four DIMM slots and a second physical x16 slot run off the chipset.

This is still very much a budget board, probably aimed more towards the user looking at the cheaper end of the AMD chip market, notably the Ryzen 3 2200G, and it misses out on some of the features we expect to see. USB 3.1 Gen 2 and the Realtek ALC1220 audio codec are replaced by lower-specification options, while there's no cooling on some of the power-delivery components and the lighting is limited to red LEDs alone.

That said, there is also enough good present, as well. A decent number of fan headers, clean layout, that x4 PCIe slot at the bottom, and solid stability count for it. One is never going to get all the advanced features for an £80 outlay, but if you plan to run a low-end Ryzen chip, preferably the APU variant and export video out over the 4K60-capable DisplayPort connector, the MSI B350M Mortar ought to be at least worthy of attention.

 

The Good
 
The Bad
Good layout
Very solid during load
Good cooling potential
Well-priced solution

 
No USB 3.1 Gen 2
Not full-coverage cooling
Audio is average



MSI B350M Mortar

HEXUS.where2buy*

The MSI B350M Mortar motherboard is available to purchase from Scan Computers.*

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.



*UK-based HEXUS community members are eligible for free delivery and priority customer service through the SCAN.care@HEXUS forum.



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