MSI MAG B860M MORTAR WIFI Review – Going For The Extra Mile

After the busy week that is CES 2025 with lots of announcements and launches, the Intel B860 chipset is one of them: this new chipset will be powering various mid-range motherboards for the new Core Ultra 200 series CPUs, and here we have MSI’s new MAG B860M MORTAR WIFI motherboard in this review (here’s our first impressions when we first opened the box last week).

Unboxing

The outer box of the motherboard is fairly nondescript, with the model name itself and a few markings. The interesting one is the new “Ultra Connect” branding that MSI introduced this time around for users to easily identify its connectivity capabilities. New to this box is the “Ready for AI PC” designation which is term tacked on just about everywhere in today’s PC market – hardly surprising, really.

In any case, inside the box you’ll get a small set of accessories, most of which are pretty neat ones that you won’t necessarily find in other motherboards. For example, there’s the EZ Conn connector and the EZ front panel header designed to clean up cabling, and the standoff socket that allows you to relocate the case standoffs for the motherboard’s micro-ATX form factor, if needed. Also new is the Wi-Fi 7 antenna that adopts the push-fit design for a more straightforward installation process.

Walkaround

The visual design is naturally highly similar to the MSI MAG Z890 TOMAHAWK WIFI we reviewed several months ago, with the usual black and lime color combination for the MAG-branded products. However, one interesting design decision is the lack of heatsink for the second SSD slot, while the third slot has “02.” marking on it – I certainly got tricked into thinking this motherboard only has two SSD slots at first.

Slightly off-topic: This set of numbers “77 79 82 84 65 82” located on the lower-left edge was something we didn’t spot during the unboxing process. Turns out, this spells “MORTAR”, which is this motherboard’s model name, in ASCII code.

There are a total of five heatsinks for this motherboard, with VRM opting for split designs common on mainstream models; meanwhile the SSD heatsinks each adopt a different installation mechanism. The primary slot uses the EZ M.2 Shield Frozr II design that latch and unlatch with a single push, while the second heatsink sticks to a more traditional captive screw design. Finally, there’s the chipset heatsink to keep the B860 chipset cool under heavy PCH I/O workloads.

For I/O, MSI has given this motherboard quite a robust set of ports: up to three display outputs via iGPU (HDMI, DisplayPort & Thunderbolt 4), the Thunderbolt 4 port, and 5-gigabit LAN port that is more commonly found on higher-end motherboards. For a supposedly “budget” motherboard, it’s quite expansive all things considered.

Specifications

MSI MAG B860M MORTAR WIFI

Full specifications available on product page and datasheet.

CPU Support	LGA1851 (Intel Core Ultra 200S series)
Form Factor	micro-ATX (9.6 x 9.6 in / 244 x 244 mm)
Chipset	Intel B860
Power & VRM	2x EPS 8-pin 12+1+1+1 stage (Vcore+SA+GT+VNNAON) All MOSFETs: MPS MP87661* (60A per powerstage) PWM Controller: MPS MP29005-A* (*) Denotes undocumented part as of this writing.
Memory	4-slot, single-sided latch Max. 256GB, DDR5-6400 unbuffered Overclocking support up to DDR5-9200+ CUDIMM support
PCIe Expansion Slots	1x PCIe 5.0 x16 (CPU) 1x PCIe 4.0 x4 (PCH)
Storage	4x SATA 6Gb/s 3x M.2 slots: – 1x PCIe 5.0 x4 (CPU), M.2 2280/2260/2242 – 1x PCIe 4.0 x4 (PCH), M.2 2280/2260 – 1x PCIe 4.0 x4 (PCH), M.2 2280/2260
Networking	Intel Killer BE1750x Wi-Fi 7 module* (M.2 Key-E) Bluetooth 5.4 Intel Killer E5000 5GbE LAN *Wi-Fi 7 support requires Windows 11 24H2 and later
USB Outputs	Rear: 1x Thunderbolt 4 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) Type-C 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) Type-A 4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbps) Type-A Front (headers): 1x Thunderbolt 5 (add-in card) 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbps) 2x USB 2.0 (splitting to 4x USB 2.0)
Onboard Display	1x HDMI 2.1 FRL @ 8K 60Hz 1x DisplayPort 1.4 @ 4K 60Hz 1x Thunderbolt 4 (DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR20 @ 4K 120Hz / 8K 60Hz)
Audio	Realtek ALC897 codec De-pop protection 1x S/PDIF (TOSLINK optical out)
Peripheral Headers	Fan and Cooling 1x CPU Fan 1x Combo Fan (PUMP_SYS Fan) 4x System Fan 1x EZ Conn-header (JAF_1, 7-pin) GPU/PCIe 1x Supplemental PCIe 8-pin header (PCIE_PWR) Miscellaneous 2x Front Panel (JFP) 1x Chassis Intrusion (JCI) 1x Front Audio (JAUD) 3x Addressable V2 RGB LED connector (JARGB_V2) 1x RGB LED connector (JRGB) 1x TPM 2.0 pin header
Accessories	EU Regulatory Notice Quick installation guide ‘Shout out’ Flyer SATA cable 2x EZ M.2 Clip II packages EZ M.2 Clip II Remover EZ Wi-Fi antenna 2-in-1 EZ Conn cable EZ Front panel cable

Test System

CPU	Intel Core Ultra 9 285K
Cooling	Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL360 Flux 30th Anniversary Edition Polartherm X-10
Motherboard	> MSI MAG B860M MORTAR WIFI
GPU	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition
Memory	AGi UD858 DDR5 TURBOJET RGB (DDR5-6800 CL34, 2x16GB)
Storage	ADATA LEGEND 960 MAX 1TB
Power Supply	GameMax Rampage GX-1050 PRO (ATX 3.1) 1050W
Case	VECTOR Bench Case (Open-air chassis)
Operating System	Windows 11 Home 24H2

Teardown

VRM

The VRM layout for the MAG B860M MORTAR WIFI is quite simple: this 12+1+1+1-stage setup is comprised of just the MPS MP29005-A PWM controller and the MPS MP87661 MOSFETs (with 60A per stage). Both parts happen to be the exact ones seen on the MAG Z890 TOMAHAWK WIFI motherboard, though in that case the MPS MOSFETs serves as the auxiliary power stage for that motherboard.

This is still sufficient to deliver the 250W TDP that the new Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor demands at its maximum, and MSI clearly thinks it can do more judging through its BIOS settings (and our testing results), which we’ll talk later on.

Storage & Expansion

The storage and expansion layout looks like this: given its mATX form factor, the motherboard can fit up to 2 PCIe slots and 3 M.2 SSD slots, which is just about sufficient for most users. Since the second slot is mechanically and electrically a 4x component, this means it should be able to work with high-resolution capture cards for streaming setups (for example, Elgato’s 4K60 Pro capture card only require PCIe 2.0 x4, which the chipset can provide).

LAN & Wi-Fi

MSI has opted for both Intel Killer products for its connectivity: the Killer E5000B delivers up to 5 gigabits of bandwidth, while the Killer BE1750x is the new Wi-Fi 7 chipset with full 320MHz bandwidth support. These are the very same models found on the higher-end MAG Z890 motherboard we just mentioned as well.

I/O

We found several controllers throughout the motherboard, and they include the Intel Thunderbolt 4 retimer (since the controller is already integrated into the Core Ultra CPU a discrete chip is not needed), plus Realtek and Genesys Logic USB controllers. There’s also the Thunderbolt 5 header for the optional add-in card if you need the 120Gbps max bandwidth this protocol is designed to offer.

Audio

For the audio, this motherboard uses the Realtek ALC897 codec, which is a fairly budget model that offers 90dbA / 95dbA signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio. That said, it’s good enough to serve most headphones, short for a few high-end studio-grade ones that may be more picky on appropriate hardware.

Other Features

The unique features this motherboard offers essentially are all “EZ” designs. For SSDs, both the heatsink and the slot itself now supports tool-less installations – though it’s worth noting that the EZ M.2 Clip II, which replaces the old rotating clip, is only available on the second SSD slot. The other two are pre-installed with the aforementioned rotating clip, but you are also provided with two additional EZ M.2 Clip II modules in the box to replace them if needed.

The other EZ features are the new EZ Conn header, and in this case you’re looking at the “V1” variant that splits the 7-pin header into 4-pin PWM and 3-pin RGB signals. The idea is to simply have one cable visible instead of two, so you can hide most of that cabling behind the case. For GPUs, MSI also implemented the new slot lock mechanism that engage/disengage via a button press on the right side of the motherboard.

Thermals

For the VRM thermal testing, we opted to provide active cooling whilst putting the Intel Core Ultra 9 processor at its stock limits (250W TDP). In this condition, the VRM measures around 53°C by the end of the 15-minute test – so there should be headroom available if you ever need to push the processor further (though it’s very uncommon for this Arrow Lake-based CPU to actually max out its TDP unless you’re applying a synthetic workload, like the OCCT stress test).

BIOS & Software

The new CLICK BIOS X interface significantly improves the user-friendliness of the motherboard, with most of the common settings now put on the home page for simple and easy access, even for novices. Interestingly, it is possible to de-restrict the CPU power limits if you need it – quite surprising given that this is a mid-range motherboard after all, and Intel has lately been quite a lot more cautious on CPU overclocking due to the 13th/14th Gen fiasco.

On the software side, the MSI Center is responsible for all the controls within the Windows operating system. The software can be configured to install select components only, which helps reduce the bloat. That said, there is one design decision that I don’t agree with (or at least I don’t see the benefit of such) – why is NPU usage metrics taking a more prominent position on the monitoring page over CPU metrics?

Verdict

The MSI MAG B860M MORTAR WIFI is yet to have an official pricing here in Malaysia, but we do have confirmed US pricing right now, which is $219. With currency conversions and taxes all accounted for, we could be looking at the price of RM1,200 or so – and that’s plenty good value for a motherboard with features more commonly found on higher-end ones.

Special thanks to MSI Malaysia for providing the MAG B860M MORTAR WIFI motherboard for this review.