Overclocking

The X299 Tomahawk Arctic proved to be a capable overclocker, reaching our usual 4.6GHz with our Core i9-7900X and needing just 1.18V to get there -  a little more than some of the other boards we've seen. Still, it was perfectly stable and the CPU was well within limits, but unsurprisingly the power draw of 399W from the wall was one of the higher on test.

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Performance Analysis

There was a similar situation to the MSI X299 SLI Plus with the Arctic appearing to boost further than the other boards out of the box, leading to some faster results. It's worth mentioning that Gigabyte and Asus have similar enhanced turbo modes that are easy to apply. If you're not brave enough to do some full-on overclocking, this is an easy way to squeeze more performance out of your CPU with little extra heat or power draw to deal with. 

This did result in some handy benchmark numbers, though, getting close to or matching the X299 SLI plus in many tests and generally performing a little better than other boards in the graphs. Where the boost wasn't an advantage, the board still fared well, matching other results in the storage tests and doing reasonably well in the audio tests too, not being far off the pace in percentage terms.

Conclusion

There are certainly cheaper options out there if you want a home for your Core i9 CPU, but the extra cash does net you numerous extra features such as an M.2 heatsink, overclocking and testing tools, and of course the stunning colour scheme. It's a very similar board to the X299 SLI Plus in terms of features and price and for the small extra outlay MSI has kitted it out with some aesthetics that fans of clean, white builds will appreciate. There's nothing stand-out apart from this, but the X299 Tomahawk Arctic puts in a solid effort and does enough to warrant its award.