The MSI X299 Tomahawk Arctic Motherboard Review: White as Snow
by Joe Shields on November 20, 2017 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- MSI
- M.2
- USB 3.1
- X299
- Skylake-X
- Tomahawk
- Tomahawk Arctic
Benchmark Overview
For our testing, depending on the product, we attempt to tailor the presentation of our global benchmark suite down into what users who would buy this hardware might actually want to run. For CPUs, our full test suite is typically used to gather data and all the results are placed into Bench, our benchmark database for users that want to look at non-typical benchmarks or legacy data. For motherboards, we run our short form CPU tests, the gaming tests with half the GPUs of our processor suite, and our system benchmark tests which focus on non-typical and non-obvious performance metrics that are the focal point for specific groups of users.
The benchmarks fall into several areas:
Short Form CPU
Our short form testing script uses a straight run through of a mixture of known apps or workloads and requires about four hours. These are typically the CPU tests we run in our motherboard suite, to identify any performance anomalies.
| CPU Short Form Benchmarks | |
| Three Dimensional Particle Movement v2.1 (3DPM) | 3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, derived from my academic research years looking at particle movement parallelism. The coding for this tool was rough, but emulates the real world in being non-CompSci trained code for a scientific endeavor. The code is unoptimized, but the test uses OpenMP to move particles around a field using one of six 3D movement algorithms in turn, each of which is found in the academic literature. |
| The second version of this benchmark is similar to the first, however it has been re-written in VS2012 with one major difference: the code has been written to address the issue of false sharing. If data required by multiple threads, say four, is in the same cache line, the software cannot read the cache line once and split the data to each thread - instead it will read four times in a serial fashion. The new software splits the data to new cache lines so reads can be parallelized and stalls minimized. | |
| WinRAR 5.4 | WinRAR is a compression based software to reduce file size at the expense of CPU cycles. We use the version that has been a stable part of our benchmark database through 2015, and run the default settings on a 1.52GB directory containing over 2800 files representing a small website with around thirty half-minute videos. We take the average of several runs in this instance. |
| POV-Ray 3.7.1 b4 | POV-Ray is a common ray-tracing tool used to generate realistic looking scenes. We've used POV-Ray in its various guises over the years as a good benchmark for performance, as well as a tool on the march to ray-tracing limited immersive environments. We use the built-in multi threaded benchmark. |
| HandBrake v1.0.2 | HandBrake is a freeware video conversion tool. We use the tool in to process two different videos into x264 in an MP4 container - first a 'low quality' two-hour video at 640x388 resolution to x264, then a 'high quality' ten-minute video at 4320x3840, and finally the second video again but into HEVC. The low-quality video scales at lower performance hardware, whereas the buffers required for high-quality tests can stretch even the biggest processors. At current, this is a CPU only test. |
| 7-Zip 9.2 | 7-Zip is a freeware compression/decompression tool that is widely deployed across the world. We run the included benchmark tool using a 50MB library and take the average of a set of fixed-time results. |
| DigiCortex v1.20 | The newest benchmark in our suite is DigiCortex, a simulation of biologically plausible neural network circuits, and simulates activity of neurons and synapses. DigiCortex relies heavily on a mix of DRAM speed and computational throughput, indicating that systems which apply memory profiles properly should benefit and those that play fast and loose with overclocking settings might get some extra speed up. |
System Benchmarks
Our system benchmarks are designed to probe motherboard controller performance, particularly any additional USB controllers or the audio controller. As general platform tests we have DPC Latency measurements and system boot time, which can be difficult to optimize for on the board design and manufacturing level.
| System Benchmarks | |
| Power Consumption | One of the primary differences between different motherboads is power consumption. Aside from the base defaults that every motherboard needs, things like power delivery, controller choice, routing and firmware can all contribute to how much power a system can draw. This increases for features such as PLX chips and multi-gigabit ethernet. |
| Non-UEFI POST Time | The POST sequence of the motherboard becomes before loading the OS, and involves pre-testing of onboard controllers, the CPU, the DRAM and everything else to ensure base stability. The number of controllers, as well as firmware optimizations, affect the POST time a lot. We test the BIOS defaults as well as attempt a stripped POST. |
| Rightmark Audio Analyzer 6.2.5 | Testing onboard audio is difficult, especially with the numerous amount of post-processing packages now being bundled with hardware. Nonetheless, manufacturers put time and effort into offering a 'cleaner' sound that is loud and of a high quality. RMAA, with version 6.2.5 (newer versions have issues), under the right settings can be used to test the signal-to-noise ratio, signal crossover, and harmonic distortion with noise. |
| USB Backup | USB ports can come from a variety of sources: chipsets, controllers or hubs. More often than not, the design of the traces can lead to direct impacts on USB performance as well as firmware level choices relating to signal integrity on the motherboard. |
| DPC Latency | Another element is deferred procedure call latency, or the ability to handle interrupt servicing. Depending on the motherboard firmware and controller selection, some motherboards handle these interrupts quicker than others. A poor result could lead to delays in performance, or for example with audio, a delayed request can manifest in distinct audible pauses, pops or clicks. |
Gaming
Our gaming benchmarks are designed to show any differences in performance when playing games.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
21 Comments
View All Comments
blppt - Tuesday, November 21, 2017 - link
Believe it or not, I've had exactly zero issues with my ASRock Taichi X399---was kinda concerned about trusting a "budget brand" but after seeing all the issues with the MSI/ASUS/GB boards, I decided to give them a try.I do NOT use custom fan profiles though---cant tell you if those work or not.
PeachNCream - Monday, November 20, 2017 - link
While the motherboard's price and features seem reasonable, the terminology used to describe the target audience seems weird to me. When I think of casual gaming, playing things like Candy Crush Saga or spending time on Pogo.com both come to mind. Maybe there's a few inexpensive titles or some occasional 3D stuff, but certainly nothing that needs a 6+ core CPU or even much more than a low end dGPU.inighthawki - Monday, November 20, 2017 - link
"Casual" in the realm of PC gaming pretty much refers to anything short of playing competitively or professional, which can essentially refer to anyone who just wants really high performance.PeachNCream - Monday, November 20, 2017 - link
That's a much broader use of the term than I've seen anywhere else. It's not like "casual gamer" has a formal definition someplace so you can get away with using it like that, but you and MSI are the only ones I know of that have done it. I think from MSI's view, its mostly wishful thinking to get people playing Farmville to buy a $280 motherboard and a Skylake-X CPU for it. I'm sure they'd like that and their marketing people are trying to encourage more casual types to move up the product stacks, but most of us causal types are playing games on our phones and tablets or on a very low-end notebook PC rather than a desktop put together from individual parts.Intervenator - Monday, November 20, 2017 - link
I appreciate how this board is the most aesthetically pleasing white board I have ever seen on the market, and one of the nicest looking boards of all colors and designs I have seen in a long time.nevcairiel - Tuesday, November 21, 2017 - link
The X299 Tomahawk has a particularly bad VRM implementation, so that should probably be noted somewhere. It has some VRM components on the back of the board with only a tiny heatspreader on them (and only a 4x2 design). The X299 Gaming Pro Carbon in comparison comes with a 6x2 power design using better components - and even those need to get cooled on high OCs.From the feature set alone, the Tomahawk looked like a board I might've bought, but alas the subpar VRM limiting the OC potential had turned me off of those quite fast.
Joe Shields - Tuesday, November 21, 2017 - link
It was mentioned below the specifications table that it wasn't 'great'. However, it handled all of our testing and overclocking just fine. You will likely run out of cooling first before there is a worry about the VRMs here. Also consider the board is marketed for the professional, so there really isn't a need in the first place considering the vast majority using the board will likely keep it at stock or mild clocks anyway.Joe Shields - Tuesday, November 21, 2017 - link
Apologies, that is the SLI Plus marketed towards the professional. Scratch that portion of the above post. :)notR1CH - Tuesday, November 21, 2017 - link
What's this?! An MSI motherboard without an integrated Killer NIC? I hope they've finally realized gamers aren't interested in sub-par Killer products and this trend continues.gammaray - Wednesday, November 22, 2017 - link
Why you say Killer NIC is sub par?