MSI MAG Z690 Tomahawk WiFi: DDR5 support, OC and decent VRM

Photos: Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Photo, ...

At first glance, it’s the same board as the last tested Z690 Tomahawk WiFi DDR4 with one difference, that it supports the newer DDR5 memory standard. That’s how the Z690 Tomahawk WiFi is profiled, but looks are deceiving. A detailed analysis shows that there are some differences, including ones in design. Whether it’s for better or for worse is something you’ll learn exclusively from our measurements.

Adobe Photoshop (PugetBench)

Test environment: set of PugetBench tests. App version of Adobe Photoshop is 22.4.2.



















Affinity Photo (benchmark)

Test environment: built-in benchmark.





Topaz Labs AI apps

Topaz DeNoise AI, Gigapixel AI and Sharpen AI. These single-purpose applications are used for restoration of low-quality photos. Whether it is high noise (caused by higher ISO), raster level (typically after cropping) or when something needs extra focus. The AI performance is always used.

Test settings for Topaz Labs applications. DeNoise AI, Gigapixel AI and Sharpen AI, left to right. Each application has one of the three windows

Test environment: As part of batch editing, 42 photos with a lower resolution of 1920 × 1280 px are processed, with the settings from the images above. DeNoise AI is in version 3.1.2, Gigapixel in 5.5.2 and Sharpen AI in 3.1.2.



The processor is used for acceleration (and high RAM allocation), but you can also switch to the GPU


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