MSI Z170A TOMAHAWK (LGA1151) Motherboard Review

CPU & GPU Performance

Cinebench

At stock values, the motherboard reports fantastic CPU scores and defeats many alternative products with a significantly higher asking price.

Once overclocked, the MSI Z170A TOMAHAWK excels in multi-threaded performance. While the single-threaded score could be better, it’s within an acceptable margin.

WPrime

Speaking of single-threaded performance, the motherboard managed one of the best compute times we’ve encountered during the WPrime Pi benchmark.

Overclocking the CPU results in a slighter lower position in the overall ranking, but it’s still a very strong showing.

SiSoft Sandra

Once again, the motherboard reported excellent CPU performance throughout the Whetstone Aggregate test. Unfortunately, the Dhrystone score has some room for improvement. Saying that, it’s not terrible and within the range I’d expect for an affordable motherboard.

After the overclock was applied, the motherboard recorded fairly disappointing synthetic numbers, especially during the Dhyrstone benchmark. This is a little unexpected considering the stellar overclocked Cinebench scores.

3DMark

3D performance predominately revolves around driver updates and the choice of Z170 motherboard doesn’t really make a tangible difference. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to analyse the figures to see the effect of driver enhancements over time. As you can see, the MSI Z170A TOMAHAWK is capable of outputting impressive 3DMARK scores with high-end graphics hardware.

Tomb Raider

In Tomb Raider, there’s hardly anything to choose between motherboards we’ve reviewed in the past few months. Despite this, it’s clear that you can enjoy a wonderful experience with this particular product and there’s no chance of bottlenecks becoming a factor.

Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite is a strange beast because the performance from recent drivers seems to be worse than before. I’m not entirely sure why this is the case but it’s not enough to make the game stutter or exhibit large frame dips.