MSI MAG Z690 TORPEDO Gaming Motherboard, ATX – Supports
MSI MAG Z690 TORPEDO Gaming Motherboard, ATX – Supports Intel Core 12th Gen Processors, LGA 1700 – 16 Duet Rail VRM 70A, DDR5 Memory Boost 6400+MHz/OC, 1 x PCIe 5.0 x16, 3 x M.2 Gen4, 2.5G LAN, Black
Fortified PCI-e 5.0 x16
MSI PCI Express Steel Armor slots are secured to the motherboard with extra solder points* to support the weight of heavy graphics cards and shields the point of contact from electromagnetic interference:
- 1 x PCI-e 5.0 x16 slot (with Steel Armor)
- 2 x PCI-e 3.0 x16 slots
*All-new MSI Surface Mount Technology (SMT) solder welding improves signal clarity.
Gen4 & Gen3 M.2 Connectors
The MAG Z690 TORPEDO motherboard features MSI’s latest M.2 slots (Intel Optane supported):
- 3 x Gen4 x4 64Gb/s slots
- 1 x Gen3 x4 32Gb/s slot
*M.2 specifications may vary depending on the CPU installed.
M.2 Shield Frozr
Even the world’s fastest SSDs will automatically slow if thermal throttling firmware detects excessively high temperatures.
M.2 Shield Frozr is MSI’s most advanced thermal solution, offering the best possible protection to ensure maximum SSD transfer speed performance.
Intel 2.5G LAN
2.5G LAN: AnIntel I225-V 2.5Gbps LAN controller delivers a premium network gaming experience.
USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Type-C: Enables ultra-fast 20Gbps data transfer rates between devices.
HD Audio: 7.1-Channel High Definition Audio with Audio Boost 5 & S/PDIF output.
 |  |  |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSI Gaming Series | MAG | MAG | MPG | MEG | MEG |
| Form Factor | ATX | ATX | ATX | ATX | E-ATX |
| VRM | 16+1+1 Duet Rail Power System, 70A SPS | 16+1+1 Duet Rail Power System, 70A SPS | Direct 18+1+1 Phase Power System, 75A SPS | Direct 19+2 Phase Power System, 105A SPS | Direct 19+1+2 Phase Power System, 105A SPS |
| DIMM Slots | DDR5 x 4 (6400+MHz/OC) | DDR5 x 4 (6400+MHz/OC) | DDR5 x 4 (6666+MHz/OC) | DDR5 x 4 (6666+MHz/OC) | DDR5 x 4 (6666+MHz/OC) |
| PCI-e x16 Slots | 5.0 x 1 / 3.0 x 2 | 5.0 x 1 / 3.0 x 2 | 5.0 x 2 / 3.0 x 1 | 5.0 x 2 | 5.0 x 2 / 4.0 x 1 |
| M.2 Slots | 4.0 x 3 / 3.0 x 1 | 4.0 x 3 / 3.0 x 1 | 4.0 x 4 / 3.0 x 1 | 4.0 x 4 / 3.0 x 1 | 4.0 x 4 / 3.0 x 1 |
| M.2 Shield Frozr | Top | Top | Top | Double-Sided | Double-Sided |
| Audio | 8-Channel (7.1) HD Audio with Audio Boost 5 | 8-Channel (7.1) HD Audio with Audio Boost 5 | 8-Channel (7.1) HD Audio with Audio Boost 5 | 8-Channel (7.1) HD Audio with Audio Boost 5 | 8-Channel (7.1) HD Audio with Audio Boost 5HD |
| LAN | Intel I225V 2.5G LAN | Intel I225V 2.5G LAN | Intel I225V 2.5G LAN | 2 x Intel I225V 2.5G LAN | 2 x Intel I225V 2.5G LAN |
| WiFi & Bluetooth | Intel Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 | Intel Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 | Intel Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 | Intel Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 |
| Weight: | 1 kg |
| Dimensions: | 31 x 25 x 5 cm; 1 Kilograms |
| Brand: | MSI |
| Model: | 7D32-001R |
| Colour: | Black |
| Batteries Included: | Yes |
| Manufacture: | MSI |
| Dimensions: | 31 x 25 x 5 cm; 1 Kilograms |
Easy to install and to add all the various components to. Everything is well labelled and spaced out well.
The heat sinks definitely help too. The heat sinks make it slightly bulky around the CPU connections, but that’s to be expected. WiFi works, haven’t properly tested as I use Ethernet, and Bluetooth was a bit flakey but maybe it was just an Xbox controller thing.
My favourite aspect of this motherboard is probably the heatsinks. Even out of the box they are cool to the touch and fit the aesthetic of the motherboard with sleek design.
The motherboard has all you need, and after flashing the bios works great with my i5-13600kf as well as 2x16gb ddr5 ram and an rtx 3060.
The headers are labelled well, a nice touch for a first time builder.
It is a perfect match for my 300R Vampiric Pacific Blue Case. Easy to install and powerful enough to handle Raptor Lake.
I was looking for a suitable motherboard to pair with my 12600k and 32gb corsair vengeance RGB memory and loved the aesthetics of this Z690 Msi Tomahawk board. The Bios flash button on the rear io makes for very ez bios updating and was done without hassle. Installation of the motherboard was as easy as any full ATX board and i found the general cable headers on the board to be of very good quality and secured easily to the cables. Storage options are plentiful with multiple NVME slots behind a heatsink shroud in plain black finish, and multiple generic sata3 headers on the bottom right hand side of the board layout. The aesthetics of this motherboard are absolutely sleek and beautiful and worked flawlessly. I havent messed around with overclocking my CPU as i do not yet have sufficient cooling for it. My 3200mhz memory ran 2666mhz by default in the MSI Bios, but one click enabling XMP set the memory to 3200mhz and i have experienced no issues with performance, stability or functionality. I have 2 people looking to build new PC’s in a few weeks and i have advised both to purchase this superb motherboard. Would give 6 stars if i could!! Excellent work from MSI yet again! 🙂
Setting up with 13th gen intel and ddr5 ram proved difficult but with step by step install and fresh bios install, works a dream! Great Notherboard for price!
Had mine installed by a professional.
No problems at all.
Fancy, durable and stable.
After hours of of building it and being tough with the motherboard it proved to be not enough to do anything to it.
Highly recommended for new builders as well!
was such a good value for money. Not the highest spec board but i really like a pre-installed io shield
I shopped around for a motherboard that had the features I was looking for at a reasonable price. I came across this motherboard which had everything, WiFi 6e, 2.5G ethernet ports and 3 PCIe Gen 4.0 M2 slots for high speeds NVMe drives and a 4th PCIe Gen 3.0 slot !
Using this with my intel i91200K, 32GB DDR5 Ram and a MSI Mech X2 6600 GPU and haven’t had any issues at all. Using the MSI Center app on Windows 11 and the Frozr AI cooling system, my PC has been running smooth without issue since I built it in April !
Would highly recommend this Motherboard to anyone looking to build a 12gen intel system ! For the price you can’t fault it !
Installed easially with good clearance around the CPU area for AIO installation.
MSI BIOS update via memory stick worked flawlessly.
Great price point for chipset and headers.
Detected all 3 of my NVME Drives straight away with no issues
Comes with the basic, SATA cables, WiFi antenna, manual, plus stickers. The drivers though come on a USB stick so no need to dig out an external DVD drive if needed.
Everything is well laid out and labelled on the board and in the manual, making installation and setup easy.
The VRM and M.2 heatsinks are of good quality and not overly large while providing good cooling.
M.2 drives are easy to install, just remember the heatsink screws are not captive.
I would advise if you are using an older Graphics Card, like my GTX 1070,you may need to update the cards firmware for support for the new HDMI or Display Port versions.
If you do not then you will need to use the integrated GPU, on the CPU, to get to the BIOS and install the OS. Once the OS is installed your card will work but no video during POST.
Overall an excellent motherboard that gives you all the features you need at a reasonable price while looking good.
Great motherboard for the features that has. The bios need an update, it works better with a fresh OS install as it’s ment for Windows 11, runs the windows 10 but not from an old desktop.
The Tomahawk looks good, has decent I/O and has 4 m.2 slots.
More importantly it has an excellent Vrm for cooling and power delivery for stability. The Bios offer every setting you could ever need to get the most out of your hardware.
After some long deliberations on which motherboard to buy for my new 12400f CPU and 3070 TI GPU build I finally decided that the MSI Z690 Tomahawk WiFi DDR4 hit the sweet spot for value and features suitable for my needs.
The general prices of the new Z690 motherboards appear to have risen considerably from previous generations (some brands more so than others) but there are still some motherboards offering a decent set of features for a relatively reasonable price such as the MSI Tomahawk.
Installation and setup have been straightforward. The last motherboard I bought still had drivers on a CD, so I like the USB drive supplied with this one. BIOS is good and the XMP profile for my RAM was set with no problems. Everything I’ve run so far has been completely stable.
This is my second MSI motherboard and I am impressed and would certainly recommend it for its excellent features at a reasonable price.
This motherboard is for its price a top buy! It is a DDR 5 Motherboard. Easy to install, almost Plug and play. I love it! MSi Quality how it should be.
Great board, solid performance and features for the money. Nice to see MSI using Intel networking chipsets for both wired and wireless connections rather than problematic Realtek stuff.
Well laid out board with plenty of connections for fans, RGB and front mounted USB-C. The BIOS while not as fine tuned as some is perfectly serviceable and easy to use.
After using the board for a short while I’m pleased with my purchase.
So far so good. Just “build and forget” kind of hardware, exactly that I want.
I spent a lot of time scouring the Internet for a motherboard for my I7 / RTX 3080 gaming build and ended up purchasing the MSI Z690 Tomahawk. This motherboard came out on top, having all the essential features I needed (Inc built in wifi) and a solid board to build on within my case. Build quality is great and setup easy with the USB provided having all drivers needed. Would recommend as the price point is fairly good for what you ge
Originally overpriced but i got this board with a promotion for which made this board pretty decent value vs its competition.
Installation was straight forward and booklet gave good information on hardware, but bios information and help is lacking. Had issue booting and was stuck in bios for a bit and was fine to use but wasn’t easy to find the issue .Bios has a simple and advanced tab, simple seemed just for observation advanced for tweaking.
Haven’t tried any over clocking but bios did have 1 click cpu overclock button and xmp button with the later I activated with no issues.
The issue on boot was caused by seeming incompatibility with my old ssd which had my operating system, never thought to check hard drive compatibility something to keep in mind and can be found on the msi website. Also a possibility it came with 2 provided sata cables and 1 was right angle and may have broken on installation would be better with 2 normal headers.
Once in windows the board by default wouldn’t connect to internet and i had to use another pc for lan drivers, so if purchase download drivers to a usb just in case.
MSI like to advertise about good component quality and although I cant really tell, the board did feel solid, weighty and well built and the pcie port seems to reduce gpu sag over my last very old motherboard.
Overall build quality and features( wifi ,decent vrm, a decent amount of usb ports and audio ports on board and on the back i/o) are good if you can get for a decent price~230 pounds.
Reasons I purchased this product over others:
Price was much more competitive than other budget Z690 boards
This was not compromising in any aspect to spend less on a Z690 unlike other boards from other brands at the same price point.
All black design keeps it minimalistic but also dark and stealthy looking
Good VRMs and power delivery
Integrated I/O shield
Two M.2 slots with heat syncs
Simple and easy to use BIOS
2 x 8-pin CPU power connectors
A few more USB-A ports would be nice and maybe some white RGB under glow would be a nice addition.
All positive impressions so far. Motherboard was sturdy and I didn’t have any issues with damaging MB pins. The reference manual provided all the information I needed and I found it pretty easy to navigate, easy to find the MB connection locations (and then the pins themselves had good reference labelling). BIOS was also clean and easy to navigate. All in all so far so good, no issues 🙂
The only note I would make is that the size of the heatsinks at the top, which are a reason for that good thermal performance, did mean I had trouble fitting 2x140mm fans in the top of my case. I did get both 140 fans in, however it was tight.
But that isn’t a major issues and for the rest of the positives, I am still happy with the product.
I’ve always had Asus before but decided to go for this board (z690 Tomahawk ddr4) as it allows a lot of clearance for cpu air coolers (I am not fond of the water cooling solutions).
I’m very positively surprised by the quality of the components and the generosity of ports on this board.
Purchased for use with my intel i5 12600k alder lake cpu.
This board looked to be the best at its price point with everything you could need to provide a solid base for overclocking. Along with a decent cooler there should be no issues with temperatures using this board.
Installation was no problem at all and once boot order was arranged properly windows loaded up. I have had no issues using this board and as with previous MSI products i have full confidence this will last for many years.
I fully recommend this board 5/5
I was looking for a motherboard to pair with my Intel 12700K CPU. I narrowed it down to the MSI Z690-A PRO WIFI DDR4 and the TOMAHAWK WIFI DDR4 because of the value for money and price to performance.
I chose the Tomahawk because:
– Integrated IO shield which looks much better
– Excellent VRM cooling
– 16 power phases vs the Z690-A PRO’s 14 power phases
– Integrated NVMe heatsinks to keep NVMe drives cool
– Latest integrated Realtek ALC4080 onboard audio
Shout out to MSI for making a solid motherboard with excellent build quality and features which rival motherboards from other manufacturers that cost much more.
I was looking for a fair cost solid performing Z690 motherboard to pair with a 12600K for an all-black style system build that would also be compatible with a noctua nh-d15 as I know some Z690 motherboards are not due to having large heatsinks.
This motherboard fitted the bill perfectly. I feel this motherboard is one of the more reasonable priced Z690 motherboards when you take into consideration its feature set, Realtek ALC4080, Bluetooth, WiFi 6, heatsinks on all m.2 slots, excellent vrm performance / cooling.
My build was straight forward without any issues and the motherboard even comes with all the drivers included on a usb flash drive.
Really please with the finished look of the system due to this motherboard.
The MSI MAG Z690 TOMAHAWK WIFI DDR4 Motherboard is perfect for what I needed to build my new PC. Having used MSI motherboards before I was very impressed when I found this upgrade as needed to use it for the Intel Core i5 12600K 12th generation CPU.
The online MSI videos were very helpful and easily understood.
Found the MSI MAG Z690 TOMAHAWK WIFI DDR4 Motherboard at a reasonable price on Amazon UK.
For cooling I purchased MSI MAG CORELIQUID 240R Liquid CPU Cooler-another good buy. A well equipped motherboard, TMP 2.0, and overclocking facilities.
All-around brilliant motherboard-you can’t go wrong with this purchase!
My main criteria was heavy overclock on the CPU and also 3070ti, so needed good board as this is one power hungry system.
I have never OC’d before I my life. Downloaded XTU and literally moved a few sliders: set P cores at 5 and ecores at 4GHZ, and this is the result.
This board does fantastic in OC and suppling 205W to the CPU, and circa 300W to the 3070ti.
No issues OCing the ram either, switch on the XMP profile in bios and the RAM speed gets to 3600MHZ.
It has great VRM, WIFI 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 and much better audio (and headphone amplifier built in) than the cheaper Z690 alternatives. I am using Sennheiser HD579 headphones and the sound is crisp and studio like.
You should not have issues installing a cooler for LGA1200 motherboard onto this MB. I have installed the Corsair H150i pro XT which only has LGA1200 bracket included. Provided you use the correct standoffs should not be an issue. The LGA1200 brackets worked for me on this motherboard.
Visually board looks great in black and I actually like the fact there are no rgbs on the board.
Overall great performing and good looker board a step above msi A pro boards.
I was looking for something to pair with my 12600k and after searching every board I kept coming back to this one. For the price you get so many of the features z690 has to offer.
I love the aesthetic, I am not a fan of rgb on my mobo’s and this just looks so clean in my build. The board feels solid and “premium” to hold.
Installation was simple and all headers are in easy to reach, convenient spots. My only wish would be for a right angled 24 pin connector but i get that might clash with some cases.
What really drew me to this was the power phase design of the board. Very solid compared to others in the same price category, only MSI’s own edge board really competting here (it also has rgb if thats your thing). This board doesnt sweat putting 1.4v into my 12600k.
BIOS is a familar msi layout, which is a good thing! Everything is easy to find, xmp profile works perfectly and I have had no stability issues at all.
I spent the last few years using other manufactures boards and I’m glad to be back on a MSI, they just work, zero BS!
Firstly I was actually impressed with how much easier it was to build with compared to my last build (was an mATX build.)
In terms of the build:
Everything about the board feels quality and actually surprised me when building how smoothly everything went. Lots of fan headers and they are really well placed for my build. I was happy with basically all the headers placements and found this far easier to build with than my previous builds.
I would’ve preferred to see more SATA ports horizontal (only 2 out of the 6) as I have multiple drives, and same for the USB 3.0, USB 3.2 Gen 2 port and 24pin cable. But they work completely fine and don’t make the system look too cluttered so I can’t complain too much.
Using the motherboard, pretty happy with the amount of USBs on the back, would’ve been nice to have thunderbolt, but settling for a 20Gbps is fine.
WiFi and LAN work well, but I’d highly recommend downloading the drivers before as these didn’t work for me when first booting the system. I had to plug in my phone to tether my WiFi from there to get myself setup. But once the drivers were installed, I haven’t had any issues.
BIOS is like every other MSI BIOS I’ve used in the last 5/6 years, very simple once you know your way around, XMP worked flawlessly first time and doing a bit of overclocking my 12900k has worked, but I haven’t pushed too much.
Aesthetically, very happy to see a blacked out board, as I’m not really one for RGB madness. One thing to note is that the edges of the motherboard have a yellow trim, same as the line separating the audio capacitors and header. I’m not massive on this, as I would’ve preferred it to be black/grey, but it’s subtle enough to not be a major issue. Something that isn’t included in the photos that might be of interest for some is stickers for the VRM and heatsinks.
Cooling I haven’t had any issue with, VRMs stay cool but that’s probably helped by my Noctua NH-D15, which was simple to install. (Although if build with a giant air cooler and you have a modular power supply, I’d recommend installing the CPU power 2x8pins cables first before putting into the case as this was a real pain.)
Overall TL;DR
Exactly what you expect from a Z690 motherboard. Good placement of ports. Good amount of USBs, great amount of fan headers. Download network & WiFi drivers before.
After extensive research this MSI MAG Z690 Tomahawk ticked almost all the boxes for me. Very stable, runs cool and specifications in general very good. VRM’s probably best in class and memory (RAM) stability is spot on. Managed to get one with rebate and that made it a no-brainer for me value wise.
along with great support with the manual and online MSI videos.
I would class this more of a high-end/mid-range motherboards with a great price tag on Amazon, but always best to search all suppliers in your region.
I added Corsair CMK32GX4M2Z3600C18 VENGEANCE LPX 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 DRAM, that can be overclocked up to 5200 MHz, along with WD_BLACK SN850 1TB NVMe Internal Gaming SSD,
For cooling I added the MSI MAG CORELIQUID C240 Liquid CPU Cooler (I bought it from Amazon because they seemed to be the only retailer with the LGA 1700 bracket.
The build took me about 4 hrs, a few tweaks to the bios, a few stressful moments, but very happy with how quiet the build is,
all built into the MSI MAG Series Mid-Tower Gaming PC Case. complete system cost me just under 1000 excluding the GPU (Already owned).
A very fast PC at a budget price.
I absolutely love this new motherboard I got. It has everything I would need with a nice clean aesthetic without unneeded RGB.
This is a massive upgrade over my old motherboard and the ability to use my old DDR4 RAM sticks is nice instead of splashing out of the newer DDR5 which is very expensive.
The onboard WIFI is a nice plus too for setting up the PC without an ethernet cable. I have been recommended the Tomahawk line by several friends who have used them over the generations and they said it never disappointed, so it was an easy choice.
What I find impressive is the newer audio chip that pushes out 600 Ohms on the dedicated headphone amplifier. This will allow me to use my new HD 600s, without any worry that they won’t be powered enough.
I have not fully utilised the motherboard in my gaming rig yet, but from the small tests I have performed thus far, I can tell it is going to be very suitable for my gaming purposes.
After some long deliberations on which motherboard to buy for my new 12700K CPU and 3080RTX GPU build I finally decided that the MSI Z690 Tomahawk WiFi DDR4 hit the sweet spot for value and features suitable for my needs.
The general prices of the new Z690 motherboards appear to have risen considerably from previous generations (some brands more so than others) but there are still some motherboards offering a decent set of features for a relatively reasonable price such as the MSI Tomahawk.
I had also considered the slightly more expensive MSI Edge model, but the Tomahawk just “edged” it as I didn’t really need the extra features (75A power stage vs 70A, 4x 4.0 M.2 vs 3x 4.0 + 1x 3.0 M.2, more USB 3.2 Gen2 sockets, WiFi 6E vs 6, more RGB lighting, etc).
Installation and setup have been straightforward. The last motherboard I bought still had drivers on a CD, so I like the USB drive supplied with this one. BIOS is good and the XMP profile for my RAM was set with no problems. Everything I’ve run so far has been completely stable.
This is my first MSI motherboard and I am impressed and would certainly recommend it for its excellent features at a reasonable price.
The board is somewhat no-frills and has no RGB making for a clean look. MSI build quality isn’t as good as Gigabyte or Asus. There’s also sticky residue on the back of both MSI Z690 boards I used, and a little on the front. The UEFI is a bit cluttered and ugly, but functionally it’s exceptional. It is mostly clear and very well featured. A little more effort in usability would make it the equal of an Asus ROG board. That said the control is there, and it seems to work as described which you don’t always get.
Despite using the launch UEFI version, stability is perfect and compatibility with DDR4 is outstanding. I have 128GB DDR4 3600 C18, SK Hynix RAM. This is a very heavy load for any system, and this is the first board I’ve ever had where I can set the XMP setting, and it just works with stability. 72 hours of different stress tests could not shake the stability, outstanding! The Gigabyte Aorus Pro on the other hand managed 5 minutes as a comparison.
I would recommend also considering the Edge which is a little more money. On the surface the difference is only an extra 5A per phase, and some RGB. However, much to my chagrin there’s more to it. 2 of the USB 3 ports go from 5gbit, to 10gbit with the Edge. On the Tomahawk one of the m.2 slots is PCIe 3.0 x4, this is upgraded to 4.0 x4 on the Edge. Additionally, the lower PCIe 4.0 16x slot is only 1x on the Tomahawk, but 4x on the Edge. This is a shame since I have a 10gbit NIC that can only go in the lower slot, so I can’t max out the NIC anymore. On the other hand, all SATA ports are connected to the Z690 chipset on the Tomahawk, whereas 2 are using an extra SATA controller on the Edge. If you’re using RST this will impact the maximum number of drives you can have in RST RAID.
Inside of a case I haven’t heard any coil whine so far. Outside the case in open bench there’s a very small amount. I don’t overclock, so I can’t comment for power delivery in practice but based on the ICs in use, the VRM is basically overkill for anything short of liquid nitrogen.
Fan control is excellent, you can control the fan curves from within the UEFI so no need for any intrusive utilities. You can set individual points, and they can be arbitrarily moved. You can also set fan ramp up and down times. This is in stark contrast to Gigabyte where the final point on the curve must be 100%, even if that is added noise for no extra performance.
I can only recommend this board if you’re after something mid-range on the Z690. It’s staggering that this kind of cost is mid-range now, but you do get a lot for your money.