A powerhouse modern motherboard with at an equally impressive price
The Skylake improvements with the new Z170 chipset make for an impressive list of specifications for both gamers and system builder. However, you’ll be hard pressed to find a Z170 motherboard that costs less £100. Until now.
MSI has recently released its Z170A Tomahawk, an amazing motherboard that somehow manages to creep onto the shelves at £99.95. We won’t get into the benefits a Z170 motherboard offers here, but suffice to say, just because this is a sub-£100 motherboard, that doesn’t mean it’s lacking in any way.
With four DDR4 slots, two PCIe x16, three PCIe x1 and a pair of PCI slots, there’s enough upgrade and multi-GPU potential for every kind of system builder. Naturally, the Tomahawk takes Socket 1151 processors, with support for up to i7 CPUs.
Connectivity is good too, with a PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port, two USB 2.0 ports, four USB 3.1 ports, gigabit Ethernet, HDMI, DVI, optical out and five OFC audio jacks. You’ll also find a pair of M.2 ports, six SATA-3 connections and headers for a further two USB 3.1 ports.
The layout of the Z170A Tomahawk is good too. MSI has greatly improved the layout of its boards in recent years to better accommodate more elaborate cooling solutions. The heatsinks surrounding the CPU are well spaced and raised somewhat to allow a bigger cooler or a liquid cooling setup. There’s also a decent gap between the memory slots and the CPU, so you won’t get any interference from an overhanging cooler. The PCI layout is also better than most motherboards we’ve seen, with a good gap between the two PCIe x16 slots, while still having room for a smaller PCI card.
We tested the Tomahawk with an Intel i7-6700K and 8GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 memory, with an Nvidia GTX780Ti, Intel SSD and Windows 10 installed. 3DMark11 came back with an overall score of 17,087, which certainly proves it’s no slouch – even with the older GTX780Ti installed.
As you would expect from an MSI motherboard, the Tomahawk is laden with military grade, high-end components and comes with a list of features such as DDR4 Boost, better bandwidth management and a ton of overclocking possibilities. As we said, there’s something for every type of system builder. Even if you’re simply after a high-quality motherboard for everyday use, the Tomahawk will deliver the goods better than the competition.
Of course, the biggest draw to the Tomahawk over said competition is the price. The closest you’ll likely come across at the moment is the Asus Z170-A for around £120. While a perfectly fine motherboard in itself, the lure of spending the better part of 20 quid less is hard to resist.
MSI has done a fantastic job of getting the Z170A Tomahawk out for under £100 and for making it as good as the other Z170 motherboards available.
If it’s an all-singing, alldancing and thoroughly modern motherboard you’re after, then look no further than the MSI Z170A Tomahawk. David Hayward
An excellent board, at just the right price.