Home / Component / MSI X99A Tomahawk Motherboard Review

MSI X99A Tomahawk Motherboard Review

Cinebench R15

Cinebench is an application which renders a photorealistic 3D scene to benchmark a computer's rendering performance, on one CPU core, all CPU cores or using the GPU. We run the test using the all core CPU mode.

msi_x99a_graph_cine

Handbrake

Handbrake is a free and open-source video transcoding tool that can be used to convert video files between different codecs, formats and resolutions. We use Handbrake to convert a short 720p video into the Android preset built into the application.

msi_x99a_graph_handbrake

SiSoft Sandra

SiSoft Sandra 2016 is a multi-function utility program that supports remote analysis, benchmarking and diagnostic features for PCs, servers, mobile devices and networks. We run the application's processor arithmetic test to gauge the CPU performance on each tested motherboard.

msi_x99a_graph_sisoftcpu

CPU performance between our two test X99 motherboards using the same XMP memory kit and i7 6800K is unsurprisingly similar. The higher auto cache ratio of the MSI motherboard (3.1GHz vs. 2.8GHz set by ASRock) doesn't have much impact in our CPU-centric tests but should come into play with memory.

Become a Patron!

Check Also

Reader Survey 2025 – Win one of THREE Sapphire RX 9070 XT graphics cards!

The KitGuru Reader Survey helps us understand what kind of products you are keen to learn more about in 2025/2026. It takes less than 5 mins to complete and it really helps us to target our editorial efforts. As a thank you to those of you who participate, we are offering the chance for you to win one of THREE brand new Sapphire RX 9070 XT graphic cards! 

We've noticed that you are using an ad blocker.

Thank you for visiting KitGuru. Our news and reviews teams work hard to bring you the latest stories and finest, in-depth analysis.

We want to be as informative as possible – and to help our readers make the best buying decisions. The mechanism we use to run our business and pay some of the best journalists in the world, is advertising.

If you want to support KitGuru, then please add www.kitguru.net to your ad blocking whitelist or disable your adblocking software. It really makes a difference and allows us to continue creating the kind of content you really want to read.

It is important you know that we don’t run pop ups, pop unders, audio ads, code tracking ads or anything else that would interfere with the KitGuru experience. Adblockers can actually block some of our free content, such as galleries!