MSI X99A Tomahawk

MSI X99A Tomahawk - Introduction Even though the new Intel 200 series is just around the corner, socket 2011v3 motherboards and its 'aging' X99 PCH are still the foundation upon which arguably most serious PC gaming enthusiasts, workstation users, and general enthusiasts opt for. The reason for this is pretty simple: PCIe lanes. To be precise the number of PCIe lanes that they can offer. Mix in support for 10core/20 thread CPU Goliaths like the 6950X and it is self-evident why this platform is still the number one choice. The one major stumbling block to why any enthusiast even considers socket 1151 based systems is not because of performance, nor additional features, it all boils down to price. MSI is fully aware of this fact and like all good business have done something about it: they have seen a need and are now filling it. Sure in a perfect world everyone would have zero qualms about dropping 500 or more on their motherboard but for most $270 is pushing the boundaries. Well that is exactly the need the MSI X99A Tomahawk was built to satisfy as it offers all those cutting-edge features, including quad channel DDR4-3333, but does so at price that is in much more in line with LGA 1151 socketed motherboards. Today we are going to take a hard-long look at this motherboard and see if it is indeed as good a value as it appears on the surface. To be honest on the surface the combination of DDR4-3333, 40 PCIe lanes (with the proper CPU of course, ten SATA ports, one M.2 PCIe x4 ports, a killer integrated sound solution, two Intel NICs, and even an honest to god U.2 port, does sound like one heck of a bargain. So much so the first time we read the specs and the MSRP we honestly thought there was a typo and this was a new Z170 motherboard! So without further ado let's do a deep dive into the MSI X99A Tomahawk and see what makes it tick. MSI X99A Tomahawk - Specifications MSI X99A Tomahawk - A Closer Look Closer Look TL;DR Even though the MSI X99A Tomahawk lacks built in WiFi abilities this is about the only issue the average consumer will find with this motherboard. Everything from its excellent list of storage options, to its robust power delivery sub-system, to even its good onboard sound solution is sure to please. The fact MSI was able to do all that and still offer this board at such a reasonable price just shows how overpriced the typical X99 is – and how little most manufactures are trying to be affordable. A Closer Look The box the MSI X99A Tomahawk comes in is rather distinctive to say the least. This is partially thanks to the digital camo pattern and partly because of the large Tomahawk cruise missile on the front. The only issue is that there is not a picture of the actual motherboard on the front. Beyond this minor detail the box is attractive and is a sign of things to come. The accessory list is fairly bare bones for an X99 motherboard but does cover all the basics nicely. Expect to find six SATA cables, SLI ribbon cable, LED extension cable (sans LEDS), install manual and a driver DVD. Moving to the motherboard itself you can see that the MSI X99A Tomahawk is one striking looking motherboard. Everything from its custom PCB to its digital camo heatsinks and IO cover combine to make one down right gorgeous looking board. Equally impressive is the sheer number of features this board comes with. Even on just a quick glance your eye will be drawn to a few key features… and what you will find is sure to please. We will get to these standout features in a moment but for now it is suffice to say that this is one loaded motherboard. Equally important is the actual layout of all these features is darn impressive and nearly every single feature is easy to use… and not just included to tick of a box on a specification list. As we are dyed in the wool storage enthusiasts let's start with this part of the motherboard and the treasure trove of goodies it has on tap. First and foremost is this motherboard comes with a full ten SATA 6GB/s ports and while only six are right angle ports we doubt anyone will take issue with this. We say this as in return for getting a total of ten SATA ports with four in a less than optimal orientation consumers will find a SATA-Express port, a x4 PCIe M.2 port, and a U.2 port. Put simply all the basses including 'enthusiast' are covered here. Basically if you have a storage device it will work with this bad boy. The only minor issue here is that even though it does come with a four lane PCIe (aka NVMe) and SATA AHCI capable M.2 port it will only be a four-lane capable port if you use a 40-lane CPU. If on the other hand you cheap out and get a 28-lane CPU this M.2 port will be limited to x2 PCIe speeds. For most this will not matter as a major reason for opting for socket 2011-v3 is the 40 lane CPUs! On the positive side, the M.2 port is capable of handling everything from tiny M2232 all the way to extra-long M22110 M.2 SSDs. As such as long as you pair it to the right CPU your M.2 SSD will work. As an added bonus this port also comes clad in what MSI calls their MSI Armor. This metal cladding addition not only makes the M.2 port look rather striking it also purported reduces signal and EMI interference. Whether or not this is all that important remains to be seen but we are of the firm opinion that more protection is always better than less. As we are still in the same general vicinity the next mega feature of the MSI X99A Tomahawk is the PCIe ports. As with the M.2 port the three include x16 PCIe slots also get the Armor treatment. Though in this case it means more than just metal shielding. It also means a lot more and robust mounting of the x16 socket itself. So much so that even the heaviest of video card are no match for its load bearing abilities. As this is a ATX sized motherboard and MSI wanted to make sure that 2-way and 3-way video cards got access to as much air flow as possible it comes as no surprise that there are not four x16 slots. Basically the typical ATX motherboard really only has room for seven PCI/PCIe slots in total.. and since you really want to have at least one x1 PCIe slot between each as an 'air gap' there was no way to cram in the fourth without making the layout less optimal for the average user. As such if 4-way SLI or 4-way CrossFire is important to you then this board will not be right. Though for the majority of consumers we think MSI made the right choice as the top most x16 slot even supports three slot monster video cards! The other minor issue with the PCIe layout is that in order to offer a M.2 22110 capable slot MSI had to sacrifice a single x1 PCIe slot (between the secondary and tertiary x16 PCIe slots). As such this motherboard only comes with two PCIe x1 slots and both are located between the primary and secondary x16 slots. This means it will be an 'either or' proposition in that you can either have access to a single x1 port (as the topmost is going to be covered by the first video card) or you can have good airflow in 2-way GPU configurations. Luckily nothing says the third x16 slot has to be used only with x16 cards.. and since it is really only going to be a x8 slot (16+16+8) this is not that big a deal unless you have multiple x1 cards you need to install along with a pair of video cards. All in all not that big a deal. Just below the tertiary x16 PCIe slot you will find the two-digit diagnostic LED panel as well as the small power and reset buttons. The only issue we have with these bonus features is there location. Basically if use the third x16 slot it is going to cover these features… and while not being able to hit the reset button is not that big a deal, not being able to see the diagnostic error code to track down a gremlin is a big deal. It also -almost – goes without saying that if you use a long card in the third PCIe X16 slot that you are not going to easily use the additional four SATA ports. That is unless you first install 90-degree right angle cables first and then and only then install your card. That really is not that big a deal, and rather just something you need to be made aware of. What may be a big issue is the dual-bios switch will also be covered, but if you have bricked the BIOS it is not that difficult to first pull a card and then throw the switch. Another star of the show is the integrated sound solution. This is one area MSI has been paying a lot more attention two and the X99A Tomahawk shows their efforts in spades. While it may not have a removable op-amp like some higher priced models, the sound solution this card does have is rather good. At its heart is a Realtek ALC1150 8-channel audio CODEC, which is one of the best sound controllers available today, especially when combined with Texas Instruments OPA1852 op-amp and Japanese capacitors. The real star of any X99/LGA2011-v3 motherboard is of course the CPU socket and socket area. Here is where this board really shines. As you can see the area around the CPU is rather spacious by X99 systems. Equally important is while a few capacitors do encroach on the CPU socket area all these caps do comply with Intel’s z-height restrictions. What this means is they are little to no concern for the typical user and only LN2 users will worry about it. Hidden unearth this heatsink is an 8-phase all digital power delivery system that ensures clean and stable power actually reaches the CPU. To be precise this board makes use of MSI's top of the line Military Class components such as Titanium chokes and low ESR 'Dark' capacitors. To harness this potential MSI has opted for an ISL6388 6 phase controller. Of course as there are eight phases this means two of the actual six phases are doubled up to further spread the load out. All in all it is a very good power delivery subsystem and well and truly above average for its price range! This motherboard has two banks of 4 DIMMS (with up to DDR4-3333 speeds supported) and it should come as no surprise that each bank make use of their own 2-phase power delivery system. We personal prefer dual over single phase for overclocking RAM as it does provide more stability and will allow you to eek out every ounce of performance from your DDR4 sticks. Next to the DIMM bank closest to the 24-pin power connector buyers can expect to find two 4-pin fan headers that are dedicated to CPU cooling. The added header really will come in handy when using an AIO or even just a air cooler that makes use of two fans. Flipping the motherboard over we can see that MSI has opted for a metal backplate to secure the lone VRM heatsink instead of pushpins. This certainly is a good thing as we loath pushpins on motherboards as makes the motherboard's heatsink 'wobbly' and much less secure. Not so nice to see is that MSI has opted to include a few chips on the back. To be precise you will find a bunch of MOSFET chips for and a pair of ASM1164 controllers. The latter are part of the subsystem that provide the USB 3.1 Gen 1 (aka USB 3.0) abilities of the motherboard. Speaking of USB 3.1 Gen 1 this motherboard comes equipped with not one but two front headers allowing for up to four USB 3.1 G1 ports. Though as with the SATA ports the layout is a touch odd in that one (located next to the 24-pin power connector) is vertical and the other (between the U.2 and SATA ports) is horizontal. On the positive side at least one will be an optimal match for your case and wiring setup! The rear IO panel is extremely good and better than what we have seen on boards costing a lot more than this bad boy. In grand total, you will find a dedicated PS/2 keyboard and mouse port, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 4 USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, and two USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports (one type A and one Type C) two Intel powered gigabit LAN ports, the five audio jacks, and an optical S/PDIF Out connector. Now that is a potent package! The only minor nit-pick is the USB 3.1 G2 ports are via ASMedia controller and not Intel. The Intel controller does cost more than ASM and the difference are minor enough that the increased cost probably would not have been worth it for most buyers. On the positive side both LAN ports are Intel based and not Realtek/Marvell/etc. To be precise MSI has opted for the Intel 218 controllers (one 218AT and one 218LM). MSI X99A Tomahawk - BIOS BIOS TL;DR MSI has spent a lot of time and effort refining their unique BIOS and the end result is a very easy to use interface. Basically if you like what MSI has done before you will like what the X99A Tomahawk comes with. A closer look at the BIOS Even though the MSI X99A Tomahawk is nowhere near the top end of their line you would never tell that by the BIOS. Put simply, it doesn’t act nor feel like a BIOS that comes on such an inexpensive X99 motherboard. Instead it looks, acts, and yes feels, like the premium BIOS it is. If you have recently used an MSI BIOS – even a LGA1151 and not socket 2011-v3 MSI motherboard – you will feel right at home with this BIOS. As with most manufactures, MSI has spent a lot of time and effort in refining their BIOS layout and this layout – or theme if you will – is fairly consistent across their entire line. Yes the colors will change, and yes the names may slightly differ, but the core ideas remain the same: providing an interactive experience that requires as few sub-sub-menus as possible. Some may find the end result to be a touch busy, or even a touch disconcerting, but compared to some other manufacture’s quirks, MSI BIOS’ always get the job done. The easiest way to understand the underlying theme of MSI BIOS is to imagine it as a rather old school webpage. Running across the top is a header area that doesn’t really change all that much, regardless of submenu section you are in. Here you will find a brief over view of the temperatures, if OC genie is active, and have the ability to drag and drop the boot configuration. Along both sides of the rest of the page is two vertical menus, each of which consists of various sub-sections. Simply click on one of these six and the center section will change to that sub-menus options. The upside to this GUI layout is you do not have to first go up a couple levels before navigating to another sub-section, simply click and enter it! The downside is MSI had to cram all the various sections into six headers, and not one of them includes the classical ‘exit’ section! Having to either hit the ‘X’ in the corner as if this was an application and not a GUI BIOS, or first navigating to the Settings section can be a bit off putting to first time users, but it is fairly intuitive never the less. As with nearly every MSI motherboard, the BIOS main sections are Settings. OC, M-FLASH, OC-Profile, Hardware Monitor, and Board explorer. Of these six sections most users will spend the majority of their time in the Settings sub-section or the OC section. The first covers the basic motherboard settings, as well as some advanced features; while the OC section allows you delve deeply into overclocking your RAM and CPU. While many buyers will be satisfied with what the ‘OC Genie’ can do, more advanced users will love the sheer number of features that the OC section covers. Basically everything you need and want are included and while you may have to read the 'help' on the right side for a definition of what a certain option does MSI really has gone all out here. So much so that unless you are really, really into overclocking you will not be disappointed. M-FLASH is for flashing the BIOS to a latest version as well as backing up (and restoring) your BIOS via a flash drive. Thanks to the dual-BIOS abilities of this motherboard we doubt you will ever have to use this option… but if you do its nice having it! Out of all six major sections, the Hardware Monitor section is easily the most impressive. This section contains advanced command and control of various hard components including any attached fans. The included fan controller really does make creation of advanced fan profiles a relatively painless affair. We highly recommend you do this for your CPU cooling solutions fan if said device doesn’t come with its own built in fan controller! The last main menu option – aka ‘Board Explorer’ – provides users with a real-time, interactive map of the motherboard and what is attached to it. Simply click on any of the highlighted areas and you can easily pull up detailed information. This makes troubleshooting the pesky hardware problem a lot easier – as if it is not recognized you know what the issue is! MSI X99A Tomahawk - Included Software Much like MSI has spent the past few years refining their BIOS so too have they spent a lot of effort on refining their software. The end result is the BIOS commander package which is basically your one stop shop for MSI software solutions that you used to be separate packages. Want to create a RAM drive? Not a problem this feature is included. Want to customize your fan profile. Once again you will find it here. Want to manually turn on OC Genie while inside the OS. Once again, here is where you will find it. The only exceptions to this all in one approach is that MSI still leaves their software and BIOS updater program separate from the commander and discrete controller software is also not rolled into it. This means programs such as the sound card controller software will have to be installed separately and accessed separately. This means you will get the stock Realtek software with no extra flourishes or embellishes added by MSI. The upside is that you know you can always go to Realtek and get the latest version if MSI are a tardy on updating their servers. MSI’s Live Update program will routinely ping their servers and tell you when there are updates available. Also on the positive side, once it does find them you can easily install all updates with a simple click of the mouse. It will even reboot the system for you after it is done. We do recommend rerunning it afterwards just to ensure that the latest versions did in fact install. They always did in our case, but occasionally Anti-Virus programs can interfere. So ‘trust, but verify.’ MSI X99A Tomahawk - Testing Methodology To test the abilities of a given motherboard, we have broken down testing into multiple categories: 1) System Benchmarks, which consists of test that stress the entire system in synthetic and real world scenarios. 2) Synthetic Game Benchmarks which mainly stress the GPU and CPU combination, and consists of various games builtin benchmark. 3) Real World In-Game Benchmarks which consist of timed real world game play results using FRAPS and multiple modern PC games. The full list of the applications that we utilized in our benchmarking suite: Cinebench R15 3DMark 8 WinRAR x264 HD Benchmark AIDA64 Sleeping Dogs Metro: Last Light BioShock Infinite Crysis 3 Batman: Arkham Origins Tomb Raider Battliefield 4 Assassins Creed: Black Flag Call of Duty: Ghosts System Components Used: Processor: Intel 5930K Memory: 32GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3333 Cooling: Corsair H110i AIO Video Card(s): NIVIDIA GTX 980 SSD: 1x Seagate 600 Pro 400GB, 2x Intel DC S3700 800GB SSDs. Power Supply: Corsair AX860i OS: Windows 8.1 MSI X99A Tomahawk - System Benchmarks CINEBENCH R15 CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer's performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. 3DMark Fire Strike Benchmark The latest version of 3DMark from FutureMark includes numerous benchmarks including one they have dubbed "Fire Strike" and we have used the 'Extreme' settings. Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. Fire Strike features real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today. winRAR Benchmark WinRAR is a popular file compression and decompression tool that also happens to be multi-threaded application. While it does have a built in benchmark we have opted to use a custom 3GB test consisting of small, medium, and moderately large files. We then time how long it takes to compress the files into one .rar file with all WinRAR settings left at their defaults. x264 HD Benchmark x264 HD Benchmark is a benchmark that allows you to measure how fast your PC can encode a 1080p video clip into a high quality x264 video file. It allows for an easy comparison because everyone running it will use the same video clip and software. The x264 video encoder has a fairly accurate internal benchmark (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encode and it also uses multi-core processors very efficiently. All these factors make the x264 HD Benchmark an ideal tool in comparing the video encoding performance of different processors and systems. MSI X99A Tomahawk - Synthetic Game Benchmarks Sleeping Dogs Gaming Benchmark Sleeping Dogs is an open world action-adventure video game developed by United Front Games in conjunction with Square Enix London Studios and published by Square Enix, released on August 2012. Sleeping Dogs has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are the Extreme display settings and a resolution of 1920x1080. World density is set to extreme, Vsync disabled, high-res textures are enabled, and shadow resolution, shadow filtering, screen space ambient occlusion, and quality motion blur are all set to high. Metro: Last Light Gaming Benchmark Metro: Last Light is a DX11 first-person shooter video game developed by Ukrainian studio 4A Games and published by Deep Silver released in May 2013. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world and features action-oriented gameplay. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play. Scene D6 was used and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are Very High for quality and a resolution of 1920x1080. DirectX 11 is used, texture filtering is set to AF 16X, motion blur is normal, SSA turned on and tessellation is set to high. BioShock Infinite Gaming Benchmark BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter video game developed by Irrational Games, and published by 2K Games released in March 2013. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are UltraDX11 (option 3) for quality and a resolution of 1920x1800. Tomb Raider Gaming Benchmark Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game published by Square Enix and released in March 2013. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are Ultimate default settings for quality (sans 'hair' shading), VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Batman Arkham Origins Gaming Benchmark Batman: AO is an action-adventure video game published by Warner Bros and released in October 2013. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Anti-Aliasing is set to TXAA (high). Motion blur, Distortion, Lens Flare, Light Shafts, and Reflections set to On. Geometry, Dynamic Shadows, Depth of Field, and Ambient Occlusion all set to DX11 Enhanced. MSI X99A Tomahawk - Real World In-Game Benchmarks Battlefield 4 Gaming Benchmark Battlefield 4 is first person shooter video game, published by EA Digital Illusions CE and released in October 2013. Unlike most, this games does not include an in-game benchmark. This makes it perfect for more real world gaming tests. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded the first 90 seconds of the single player Tashgar level. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are Ultra pre-set for quality, with VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Assassins Creed: Black Flag Gaming Benchmark Assassins Creed: BF is an historical action-adventure video game, published by published by Ubisoft and released in October 2013. Like Battlefield 4 this games does not include an in-game benchmark. This makes it perfect for more real world gaming testing. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded a custom run through Havana’s marketplace. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Environment quality was set to very high, Anti-Aliasing was set to TXAA 4X, Ambient Occlusion set to HBAO+ (high), Shadow Quality set to ‘soft shadow’, Motion Blur and Volumetric Blur both set to On. Texture Quality, Reflection Quality, and God Rays all set to High. Call of Duty: Ghosts Gaming Benchmark Call of Duty: Ghosts is a first person shooter video game, published by Activision and released in October 2013. Since it does not include an in-game benchmark, it perfect for more real world gaming testing. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded 90 seconds of the single player ‘Ghost Stories' level, starting as soon as we resume control of Logan back on Earth. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Image Quality, Textures Resolution, Normal Map Resolution, and Specular Map Resolution set to Extra. Screen Space Ambient Occlusion and Antistrophic Filtering set to High, Terrain Detail set to ON, and Anti-Aliasing was set to TXAA 4X. With Shadows, Distortion, Motion Blue and Depth of Field set to Yes. Crysis 3 Gaming Benchmark Crysis 3 is a first person shooter video game, published by Electronic Arts and released in February 2013. While older than some of the others it is one of the most visually stunning games released to date and puts a lot of demands on the GPU. This makes it perfect for more real world gaming testing. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded 90 seconds of the single player ‘Post Human' level, starting as soon as soon as prophet is handed a Hammer II pistol by Psycho. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Texture Quality, Game Effects, Objects, Particles, Post Processing, Shadows, Shading, Water, and System Specs all set to Very High. Motion Blur was set to High and Lens Flare was set to On. Anti-Aliasing was set to MSAA 8X and Antistrophic Filtering was set to 16x. MSI X99A Tomahawk - Overclocking Results As we have all come to expect the MSI X99A Tomahawk comes with two ways to overclock your system: the easy way and the manual way. Also as expected the easy way takes the form of MSI's world renowned OC Genie option. While it may not be a physical button on the motherboard the end result is the same: an overclocked system via single push of a button. The only difference is the button is a virtual button icon in the BIOS instead of a physical one. When you push this 'easy button' the system will reboot, your RAM's XMP profile will be enabled and a moderate overclock will be automatically applied to the CPU's cores. Depending on your CPU the end result will vary but in the case of our 5930K it will push all cores to 3.9Ghz. Overall that is a nice little boost as it is 3.9Ghz on every core… even if you are using all cores at the same time. On the other hand for enthusiasts who do not mind doing a bit of tweaking the MSI X99A Tomahawk is sure to please enthusiasts. Put simply the combination of an extremely robust power delivery system and a BIOS filled with all the tuning settings you could ask for is a winning one. It is for this reason we had no troubles whatsoever hitting the same maximum overclock that our CPU is capable of. That is to say we turned a 5930K CPU into a 4.5Ghz CPU, with the UNcore set to 4.0Ghz. Equally impressive is on the RAM side of the equation we turned our DDR4-2666 into DDR-2800 with very, very little effort. That is indeed one potent combination to say the least. MSI X99A Tomahawk - Onboard Audio Performance To test a motherboard's onboard audio solution's abilities we have used RightMark Audio Analyzer. Even though this is a reasonably priced X99 motherboard the onboard sound solution is everything the typical consumer could hope for. While it may not overly impress audiophiles this level of performance will all but ensure that your headset/headphones/speakers are the weak-link. That is pretty darn good for a sub $300 X99 motherboard! MSI X99A Tomahawk - TL;DRs We know that not everyone has time to sit down and read an 8 - 10 thousand word review on one item. So in order to make things as clear and concise as possible we have not only including included "Too Long; Didn't Read" synopsis for the main section. To really get a good idea of the pros and cons we recommend reading the entire review, but this page and the Score Card section will give you a good overview of the 'board. A Closer Look Even though the MSI X99A Tomahawk lacks built in WiFi abilities this is about the only issue the average consumer will find with this motherboard. Everything from its excellent list of storage options, to its robust power delivery sub-system, to even its good onboard sound solution is sure to please. The fact MSI was able to do all that and still offer this board at such a reasonable price just shows how overpriced the typical X99 is – and how little most manufactures are trying to be affordable. BIOS MSI has spent a lot of time and effort refining their unique BIOS and the end result is a very easy to use interface. Basically if you like what MSI has done before you will like what the X99A Tomahawk comes with. System Performance While this motherboard may be inexpensive for its class it is in no shape nor form cheap. Instead you will get every bit as good performance with this board as you would with one costs much, much more. Gaming Performance For gaming enthusiasts X99 is the optimal option and for those who want good performance but don’t want to spend a fortune this board should be at the top of your list. MSI X99A Tomahawk - Score Card Packaging & Accessories: 3 out of 5 The included accessories are a touch spares but all the basics are more than covered. Equaly important is the shipping container is rather pretty and should prove not hardship finding a place to tuck it away in case you have to RMA the board at a later date. Layout & Aesthetics: 14 out of 15 While the camo pattern is going to be a love it or leave it affair, it is relatively low key so that even if you don't like it it's easy to ignore. On the other hand it is hard to ignore how good the layout of this motherboard is. Even though MSI has packed in a lot of features all are easily accessible. That is impressive. Build Quality & Warranty: 18 out of 20 A three year warranty is certainly nothing to write home about.. even if it is industry standard. On the other hand the well above average build quality more than makes up for it. Put simply this motherboard does not look, act, or feel like an inexpensive X99 board. Instead it exudes quality. BIOS & Software: 18 out of 20 The MSI BIOS and software solution is pretty darn good. They both may have a few small quirks but overall are very good in that they work and do their best to not get in your way. Special Features: 18 out 20 With everything from U.2 to Steel Armor clad PCIe slots the MSI X99A Tomahawk is packed with features that you are all but guaranteed to consider 'special'. Value: 19 out 20 This motherboard is packed to the rafters will value added features. Everything from its U.2 to sound solution combine to make justifying this reasonable asking price a down right synch. Color us impressed. Final Score: 90 out of 100 MSI X99A Tomahawk - Closing Statement Looking back on our time with the MSI X99A Tomahawk there really is not much to be found to nit-pick over. Sure, the layout of the PCIe x16 ports means 4-way GPU configurations is impossible. Sure the M.2 port will be limited to x2 mode when used with a 28-lane CPU and its only 40 lane CPUs that will unlock the full potential of the M.2 port. One could even nit-pick over the use of ASMedia instead of Intel USB 3.1 Gen 2 controller. However, none of that really matters. First and foremost, this is an X99 motherboard that costs less than many Z170 motherboards. The fact that we can really only come up with three nits to pick is simply stunning. Even excluding the shear value of this motherboard lets actually think about those nits. Firstly, in return for the 'loss' of 4 way GPU configurations each and every one of those three x16 PCIe cards come clad in MSI Armor which makes them not only robust but also able to pass clear signals on to the CPU like no non-clad PCIe slot can do. If that was not enough the layout of those cards actually makes using dual GPU configurations a breeze as there is lots of space between them – enough for even three slot GPUS! I think it is safe to say that for the 99.9999% of consumers MSI made the wise decision… and you simply cannot satisfy everyone all the time. The same holds true of M.2 and 28-lane CPUS. To be blunt running a lower end 28-lane CPU negates nearly all the benefits of running X99/socket 2011-v3 in the first place. You might as well drop down to LGA1151 and call it a day. You can either afford socket-2011v3 system or you cannot. Thankfully this board does make it a lot easier to find the room in your budget for a higher priced 40lane CPU. In the end the only issues is the use of the lower powered ASMedia chipset for USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports. In the grand scheme of things that really is not that big a hardship as the average consumer is not going to notice the difference… and those who do can simply add in a daughter card and still be in money compared to the typical $350 x99 motherboard. Put simply the Tomahawk is a bloody awesome deal that does not in any shape nor form feel like a value motherboard. Brilliant stuff.

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