MSI Z270 Tomahawk / Tomahawk Arctic Review

Overclocking

The Z270 Tomahawk has a fairly decent array of power circuitry and heatsinks, and thankfully this did translate into a good performance when it came to overclocking. Our maximum air-cooled frequency of 5GHz with our in-house Core i7-7700K was simple to achieve using a vcore of 1.35V - a little higher than some of Asus's efforts but a good result nonetheless, especially given the price tag.

For an in-depth look at MSI's EFI and software, head over to our previous analysis here.

Performance Analysis

As per usual, there's very little to differential between Z270 boards, although as the Z270 Tomahawk is the cheapest of the bunch, the fact it can keep up in performance and overclocking is good for it and bad for more expensive offerings - why pay more when you get the same performance for just £130?


Raw performance in our productivity and 3D tests was similar to other boards on test, as was the speeds offered by the M.2 ports and SATA ports. The former saw read and write speeds of 3,346MB/sec and 1,754MB/sec, so the Z270 Tomahawk is easily capable of being a home for a modern gaming system.


The one fly in the ointment here is the audio testing. As expected, the Tomahawk is way off the pace of the ALC1220 codec's capabilities present on most of the Z270 boards we've tested so far and south of what you'd expect from a basic sound card such as an Asus Xonar DGX 5.1 too.

Conclusion

Everything is good here apart from some less than stellar audio numbers, but if you were happy with the audio from your Z97 or earlier motherboard, then you'll miss nothing here, plus you'd need some keen ears to tell the difference anyway, although it's worth considering other options if audio is important. As we already mentioned, Gigabyte's Z270-Gaming K3 offers the latest audio codec for around the same price.

What most other similarly priced boards don't have, though, is the Z270 Tomahawk Arctic's aesthetic prowess. The standard Z270 Tomahawk is good looking enough, but the Arctic looks fantastic. Paired with a white case like an NZXT S340 Elite, the PC would be the envy of anyone that appreciates a clean, stark interior. It also offers a solid set of features and overclocks well too, plus MSI's EFI and software won't leave you wanting for much either. It's great to see MSI continuing to focus on something other than RGB lighting or bloatware, and aesthetics are often overlooked below £150 too. Not so here - and the Tomahawk Arctic is worth every penny as a result.