I’m surprised. I’m actually considering replacing a 6-year-old Asrock motherboard with an MSI of the same age. Basically, I’ve gotten tired of fighting UEFI and firmware issues on the Asrock that serves as the foundation for my production desktop. I see reviews and other online evidence that the MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk Max will solve those problems. It costs US$150, which is a relatively small sum when compared to the days and days I’ve spend fighting with the Asrock board in the last month.

Why Not Switch One 2020 Mobo for Another?

I’m pretty sure I can take Flo6 apart, swap mobos, and get back up and running in an afternoon. I’ve almost had to take the whole thing apart half-a-dozen times recently to pull the GPU, various drives (including the primary SSD), and the CMOS battery. Why not go all the way?

Simply put: I don’t feel like funding a complete rebuild into a new system right now, given prevailing costs for RAM and SSDs. I can make this switch for another US$150, versus US$2,650 for a similarly equipped i714700K based build.

That’ll have to wait for the general exchequer to charge up a bit. Maybe next year? For now, I’ll be happy to get a system that boots properly, and handles Secure Boot without major issues. Let’s see what happens, shall we? I’m giving it a try…