MSI MAG B860 Mortar WiFi Review: mATX Done Right

In my last take, I tested the MSI MAG B860 Tomahawk WiFi motherboard. This time around I am taking a look at our second B860 chipset series motherboard from MSI named MSI MAG B860 Mortar WiFi. You can call B860 Mortar a scale-down of a subset of B860 Tomahawk, more or less.

Both motherboards have almost the same controllers and topology with two main differences: Mortar is the mATX form factor compared to the ATX form factor of Tomahawk and PWM IC Controller chips. Other than that, they are the same design. Obviously, Mortar would be offering a bit less due to size restrictions.

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Key Takeaways

• The MSI MAG B860 Mortar WiFi is a compact yet powerful microATX motherboard offering Gen5 connectivity, WiFi 7, and Thunderbolt 4, making it a great choice for mid-range builds.
• You should not buy the MSI MAG B860 Mortar WiFi if you want a solid microATX motherboard that offers good value for the money.
• The only reason to skip the MSI MAG B860 Mortar WiFi is if you are after more of a high-spec motherboard.

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The salient features include:

• This motherboard supports Intel Core Ultra Series 2 Processors.
• It supports DDR5 Memory
• MSI has deployed 12+1+1+1 Power phases for VRM/MOSFET
• This motherboard has 1x M.2 Gen5 and 2x M.2 Gen 4 Slots
• It supports a PCIe Gen5 x16 slot for the graphics card
• The M.2 Ports and VRM/MOSFETs get good treatment for effective cooling using Extended Heatsink design and M.2 Shield Frozr
• This motherboard has a RealTek ALC 897 driver.
• This motherboard supports EZ PCIe Release.

This motherboard has a price tag of USD 219.

Form Factor	mATX
CPU Support	Intel Core Ultra Series 2
CPU Socket	LGA1851
Memory Support	4x DDR5 DIMM Slots
PCIe Support	1x PCIe Gen5 x16 slot 1x PCIe Gen4 x16 slot
On-board Graphics	1x Thunderbolt 4 Type-C 1x HDMI 2.1 FRL 1x DisplayPort 1.4 HBR2
Storage	4x SATA ports 1x Gen5 NVMe M.2 port 2x Gen4 NVMe M.2 ports
USB Ports	15x USB Ports
LAN	Intel Killer
WiFi	Intel Killer WiFi7

What Makes The MAG B860 Mortar WiFi Different?

The MAG B860 Mortar WiFi is living up to its military name, and despite its reduced size, it offers the maximum that you can expect from a regular ATX form factor motherboard. In a nutshell, Mortar is a Tomahawk in microATX size.

Packaging And Unboxing

The motherboard is shipped inside a standard cardboard packing box. Just like the B860 Tomhawk WiFi’s packing box, the salient specifications and features are listed over the packing box for the on-the-go users of the Mortar WiFi. MSI has included the following in the box:

• 1x mATX-sized Motherboard
• 1x SATA 6Gbps Cable
• 1x Quick Installation Guide
• 1x European Union Regulatory Notice
• 1x Shout Out Flyer
• EZ M.2 Clips II
• EZ M.2 Clip Remover
• 1x WiFi Antenna
• 1 to 2 EZ Conn-Cable (V1)
• 1x Front Panel Connector Cable

Design Overview

MSI MAG B860 Mortar WiFi motherboard is based on Intel LGA1851 socket. This socket controls the DIMM slots, Thunderbolt 4.0 connectivity, HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4 ports. In addition this socket provides 20x PCIe lanes.

The DMI link operates at x4 PCIe between the socket and chipset. The motherboard uses 6-layer PCB with 2Oz copper design. Rest of the connectivity comes from the B860 chipset including 2x Gen4x4 M.2 slots, WiFi 7 solution, Intel NUC, SATA and Audio solution.

Power Delivery To Socket

Like other B860 series motherboards, the MAG B860 Mortar WiFi is driven by an Intel LGA1851 socket. This is a new socket design providing 1851 contact pins with narrow ILM mounting. Intel aims to provide better and even pressure compared to the Intel LGA1700 socket.

There are two stylish and enlarged heatsink covers over the power delivery circuit. They are black and light green, resembling the military green color scheme. The two covers don’t interconnect using heat pipes. There is no LED backlighting on these covers. This is the same design as on MAG B860 Tomahawk WiFi.

MSI has used 12+1+1+1 Duet rail power system on MAG B860 Mortar WiFi driven by SPS MPS2433 PWM controller. The power stages are SPS MPS2414 rated at 60A generating 900W power across the entire power delivery circuit.

DIMM Slots

MSI has provided 4x reinforced UDDR5 DIMM slots on a different PCB layer. The MAG B860 Mortar WiFi motherboard supports a maximum of 192GB memory capacity. This motherboard supports RAM with speeds up to 9066 MHz (OC) along with support for Intel POR, JEDEC Speed, CUDIMM, and Memory overclocking.  

There is a support for Intel XMP 3.0 with dual-channel and dual-controller mode. The supported memory is non-ECC and unbuffered. You can leverage the Memory Try It and Memory Extension Mode along with OC Engine features in the BIOS to unleash the maximized memory performance.

I have already covered these along with some tests in the content of MSI MAG B860 Tomahawk WiFi Motherboard. Please check it out for more details.

Storage Options

This motherboard has a total of 3x M.2 NVMe ports. Only two ports use heatsink covers for effective cooling of the storage drives. The middle port does not have a cover. Also the third slot’s cover does not have a tool-less design.

The covers have thermal pads. These ports use EZ M.2 clips II which makes installation and removal of the drives convenient. These ports have a form factor of 2280/2260. None of these is 22110 supportive.

The top slot is PCIe Gen5x4 M.2 NVMe wired to the CPU and has a 128GB/s bandwidth rating. The bottom two slots are wired to the chipset and rated for PCIe Gen4x4 interface. None of these M.2 ports has bottom thermal pad meaning the dual sided M.2 NVMe drives will not have thermal pad on both sides.

Speaking of SATA ports, this motherboard has a total of 4x ports wired to the chipset.

PCIe Connectivity

This motherboard has a total of 2x PCIe slots. The first slot is Gen5 full x16 slotted and wired to the CPU socket. It can’t be bifurcated or split. The second slot is wired to the chipset. The second slot is PCIe 4.0 x4. The top PCIe slot is steel reinforced that MSI refers to as Steel Armor and it has heavy soldered connections on the PCB to support the weight of heavy graphics card.

This motherboard also features EZ PCIe Release button. Kudos to MSI for retaining the convenient method even on the mATX motherboard! Pressing it once will unlock the PCIe latch or locker and pressing it again will release the lock. This makes the user’s life easy when it comes to handling the graphics card and a beefy air cooler.

USB Connectivity

This motherboard is packed with USB ports on the front, rear and mid-board. It has:

• 1x USB 4/Thunderbolt 4
• 5x USB 10 Gbps ports (4x Type-A, 2x Type-C)
• 2x USB 5Gbps Type-A
• 8x USB 2.0

MSI has used several USB hubs and controllers, including GL850, RTS5420, RTS5452H, and P130BS16. I have seen IDT 6V41606B on the PCB. In older generations, this controller was employed as a clock generator.

Networking Solution

MSI has provided a wired and latest wireless connectivity on MAG B860 Mortar WiFi. The main connectivity is wired coming from an onboard 5GB LAN port (NUC) powered by Intel Killer E5000B network controller. I saw same controller in MAG B860 Tomahawk WiFi.

In addition, there is a powerful WiFi module that comes pre-installed and a dedicated antenna is also in the box. MSI has implemented latest WiFi 7 module driven by Intel Killer BE1750X controller. Bluetooth 5.4 is provided.

The new protocol has 320MHz channel width compared to 160MHz on the previous generation. Wi-Fi 7 improves the modulation scheme from 1024-QAM to 4096-QAM, which is impressive. This new generation is capable of sending and receiving data across several frequencies and channels at a time.

Audio Solution

This motherboard comes with a same audio solution on the MAG B860 Tomahawk WiFi motherboard. The audio hardware is on two separate layers of the PCB. MSI has used a basic Audio controller from Realtek which is ALC897. This is nothing fancy here.

This is a 7.1-channel audio solution with S/PDIF output. MSI has designed the isolated analogy structure for the output on the rear panel. In this design, the external metal housing is separated from the internal layout to further improve the sound quality.

I am showing the B860 chipset after removing its heatsink cover. Now that we have a brief overview of this motherboard, let’s take a look at the connectors.

Internal Connectors

There are:

• 1x Thunderbolt5 card connector (JTBT5, support RTD3)
• 1x 24-pin ATX Power Connector
• 2x EPS Connectors
• 1x Power Connector (PCIE_PWR 8pin)
• 1x CPU Fan Header
• 1x Combo Fan Header (Pump_Sys Fan)
• 4x System Fan Headers
• 1x EZ Conn-header (JAF_1)
• 2x Front Panel (JFP)
• 1x Chassis Intrusion (JCI)
• 1x Front Audio (JAUD)
• 1x Tuning Controller connector (JDASH)
• 3x Addressable V2 RGB LED connector (JARGB_V2)
• 1x RGB LED connector(JRGB)
• 1x TPM pin header(Support TPM 2.0)
• 4x USB 2.0 ports
• 2x USB 5Gbps Type A ports
• 1x USB 10Gbps Type C ports

Each fan header is powered and controlled by nuvoTon 3948S. This is the same controller as on the MAG B860 Tomahawk WiFi. The Pump Header is rated for 3A. The CPU Fan header is rated for 2A. The other fan headers are rated at 1A each. There are 4x LEDs to troubleshoot the system in case anything ho hey wires. These LEDs correspond to the CPU, RAM, VGA, and Boot. However, there is no debug LED on this motherboard.

Rear IO Panel

There are:

• 1x HDMI Port
• 1x DisplayPort
• 1x Thunderbolt 4.0 Type-C Port
• Clear CMOS
• Flash BIOS
• 4x USB 2.0
• 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 10Gbps (Type-C)
• 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps (Type-A)
• 1x 5G LAN Port
• WiFi 7 Antennae Ports
• Audio Connectors

This motherboard comes with the rear IO cover pre-installed. However, the rear IO does not have a USB 3.2 Gen2x2 port.

I am showing the PCB after removing the heatsink covers. The second picture shows the backside of the motherboard.

MSI has used Nuvoton NCT6687D-M as a main IO controller on this motherboard. MSI has used the same controller on the MAG B860 Tomahawk WiFi.

BIOS

MSI has redesigned the BIOS interface. Now, the navigation is made even better with easy tracking, and sub-level interfaces are simplified as well. The HW Monitor and Profiles interface are better laid out as well. BIOS is started in Eazy Mode, which the user can switch to advanced mode. It displays the basic data like motherboard, CPU, and Memory modes along with temperatures. XMP is just one click away in the Eazy mode. There are six main sections or categories in the Advanced Settings. OC has CPU and memory-related voltages and other settings. The settings menu has system-related settings, including BOOT and Save & Exit.

A hardware monitor allows the users to control the speed of the fans. OC Profiles allow the users to save their configurations in the files and restore from the saved files. This would come in handy during installation. M-Flash is used to update the BIOS ROM. The user can also set the memory timings and voltage manually.

MSI MAG B860 Tomahawk and Mortar use the same design topology and controllers. The results of Tomahawk are more or less expected on the Mortar as well. You can check our take on MAG B860 Tomahawk WiFi for more details.  

Software

Auto Driver Installation has been with us since Z790, and it is a handy feature that allows frustration-free driver installation. The only prerequisite is that you have an active Internet connection.

Test Build

I have used the following configuration to test the motherboard:

• MSI MAG B860 Mortar WiFi
• MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Gaming X Trio 24G
• Intel Core Ultra 7 265k [Stock, Auto]
• MSI MAG CoreLiquid E360 Cooler
• XPG Lancer RGB 32GB 7200MHz CAS34 DDR5 kit
• Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB Gen4x4 NVMe SSD [For OS]
• Sabrent Rocket Q XTRM 2TB Thunderbolt Drive
• Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB Gen4x4 NVMe SSD [For Games]
• Fractal Design ION+2 860 Platinum PSU
• Thermaltake Core P6 TG Snow Edition in an open frame layout

The above is a picture showing a run of CPU-Z. Software is reporting the bus speed of 100.02MHz. You can also see that graphics card is operating at x16 link. The RAM was operating at its tested speed of 7200MT/s after loading the XMP.

We have divided the overall tests into four major categories. These are:

• CPU and Memory Tests
• Gaming Tests
• Storage Tests
• Overall System Tests

Test Result

The testing was done on stock settings with XMP loaded. Intel’s default power profile is used.

CPU And Memory Benchmarks

As I pointed out, with the high latency on this platform, the Mortar shows the same result. The CPU scored 36457 points in CPU Multi-Core load and 2331 points in a Single Core Load in R23.2. The DDR5 kit was performing at its rating. However latencies seem to be high on this platform compared to Z790. Also, I have observed high latency on this motherboard compared to MAG B860 Tomahawk WiFi using the same kit. With a compression result of 160.03 GIPS and 165.743 GIPS score in Decompression, this CPU has shown its true performance potential.

Storage Test

I have used a PCIe Gen4x4 NVMe drive and a Thunderbolt 4 drive which is the Sabrent Rocket Q-XTRM 2TB portable drive. The NVMe drive passed the sequential read and write speeds in the CrystalDiskMark. The Thunderbolt drive also passed the rated speeds.

The PCMARK10 Data Drive and Quick System Drive benchmarks have shown a good performance particularly the fact that this motherboard has shown a better storage performance in this benchmark compared to the MAG B860 Tomahawk WiFi.

Gaming Test

Our build got 10634 score in Time Spy Extreme and 13139 score in Fire Strike Ultra. The Speed Way score was 5534. This is a good performance overall from the CPU and Graphics card showing that the motherboard is not holding these components back.

In all six games that I have tested, the FPS were above 100 mark. I have tested all games using their highest graphics presets on 1440P using 165Hz refresh rate over Display Port. The gaming performance is right on the money and this motherboard can handle the task easily.

System Performance Test

The system was doing 9472 in PCMARK10. The MAG B860 Tomahawk WiFi with a score of 10620 has a relative better performance. The result from Performance Test is 11193 which is low compared to MAG B860 Tomahawk WiFi’s 13294. The main reason for this is the low memory score of MAG B860 Mortar WiFi.

Core Clock Behavior

The system was left idle for 10 minutes under the Balanced Power Profile. The idle clocks were 800~2200MHzMHz on the P-Cores, whereas these were 3300MHz on the E-Cores, more or less. The clocks were peaking at 5.5GHz under a 1T load. All cores load put these clocks to 5.2GHz. These figures confirm Intel’s clock ratings for Core Ultra 265k.

Power Draw

I am reporting the system-wide power draw here. It would come down to the configuration and is not comparable with other configurations. It would give a rough idea of a relevant power consumption. The four categories are:

• System Idle Power
• System Gaming Load Power
• System Power with 1T Core Load
• System Power with nT Core Load

The system idle power draw was 61.8W. The power draw with gaming load was 535W which is fine. When we put CPU only under load, the system wide power draw with 1T load was 100.6W and it was 298.6W with all cores load using Cinebench R23.2.

Thermals

Testing was done at an ambient temperature of 16ᵒC. The CPU was idling at 24ᵒC, and the graphics card was idling at 37.2ᵒC. Under load, the CPU was doing 72ᵒC whereas the GPU was doing 76ᵒC. The VRM/MOSFET was doing 54.7ᵒC at the same ambient.

Should You Buy It?

Buy It If

✅You want to get the latest tech in microATX: The MSI MAG B860 Mortar WiFi has a form factor of mATX or microATX. Despite the reduced size, there is no compromise on the performance.

✅You are looking for Gen 5 connectivity: If you are looking for Gen 5 connectivity, then MAG B860 Mortar WiFi is for you.

✅Value is your thing: Coming in at USD 219, this motherboard is a good mid-range motherboard that can fulfil your gaming requirements without breaking your wallet.

Don’t Buy It If

❌You are looking for a high-spec motherboard: If you are a heavy user looking for an extensive feature set in a motherboard, then skip it.

Final Words

MSI MAG B860 Mortar WiFi motherboard is a mainstream to mid-range offer that comes with a good set of features in the microATX form factor. It even has a Thunderbolt 4.0 port and wired, as well as the latest wireless networking options. This motherboard is based on Intel LGA1851 using B860 chipset. It has 3x M.2 ports with one port operating on Gen5x4 link. This motherboard has 4x SATA ports as well.

This is not all, as we have extensive USB ports on mid-board and rear/front including USB 3.2 Gen2 and USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C ports. There is a Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 port on the rear panel which is part of Intel’s feature on latest platform. It uses USB 4 tunneling. This motherboard has just one less USB ports compared to MAG B860 Tomahawk WiFi.

MSI has provided Clear CMOS and Flash BIOS buttons on the back panel. This motherboard has a 12+1+1+1 power delivery mechanism, which is adequate to handle Intel mid-range CPUs. The cooling department is strong as well, with 6x Fan headers and aluminum heat sink covers over the VRM/MOSFET, M.2 ports, and Chipset. MSI has used thermal pads on these covers.

MSI has provided a 5GbE NUC and an integrated WiFi 7 module (with Bluetooth). There is also overcurrent and overvoltage protection. This motherboard provides OC Engine, Memory Try It, and Memory Extension mode in the BIOS that you can utilize to unleash the full performance of your Memory.

The BIOS interface has been redesigned, and MSI has simplified it to my liking. Speaking of audio, MSI has provided the RealTek ALC897 codec, which is a pretty basic audio solution. Overall, this motherboard’s performance is good as well. Despite its reduced size, it offers almost the same features as the full ATX B860 Tomahawk WiFi.

This motherboard costs USD 219 and comes with a 3-year warranty from MSI. I believe its features justify this price.