MSI Z170A TOMAHAWK AC Intel Z170 LGA 1151 (Socket H4) ATX motherboard

Socket LGA1151, Intel Z170 Chipset, 4 x DDR4 up to 64GB, 1 x Gigabit Ethernet, 6 x SATA, 2 x PCI-Express x16, 3 x PCI-Express x1, 2 x PCI NON-STOP GAMING

Equip yourself with the MSI Arsenal GAMING Series motherboards to improve your game. MSI Arsenal GAMING Series motherboards are covered in full black camouflage with LED ambient lights and is packed with gaming features, making them the perfect weapon to dominate the battlefield.

UNMATCHED MEMORY PERFORMANCE AND STABILITY

With traditional memory design the memory signals are often distorted by electromagnetic signals from other components, making the system perform slower or become unstable. MSI introduces DDR4 Boost technology with optimized traces and fully isolated memory circuitry. This design ensures the memory signals stay pure for optimal performance and stability.

An added XMP LED highlights an active Extreme Memory Profile for the best memory speed and stability setting.

GAMING LED EFFECT

The Arsenal GAMING Series motherboards come with LEDs on the back of the motherboard to let you fully enjoy the gaming side of things. Like war paint, turn them on for the full Arsenal GAMING experience and you are ready to dominate any battlefield.

HEAVY PLATED HEATSINK DESIGN

Heavy plated premium heatsinks truly represent style & performance and make sure your system stays cool during even the longest gaming sessions.

GAMING DNA DESIGN

GAMING on the inside, GAMING on the outside. Attention to detail, from red and black look & feel to PCB printing, make the next generation MSI GAMING motherboards stand out once again.

GAMING HEATSINK

The GAMING Heatsink is designed for the best performance and awesome looks, confirming you are dealing with a geniune MSI® GAMING motherboard.

HEAVY PLATED HEATSINK DESIGN

Heavy plated premium heatsinks truly represent style & performance and make sure your system stays cool during even the longest gaming sessions.

GAMING DNA DESIGN

GAMING on the inside, GAMING on the outside. Attention to detail, from red and black look & feel to PCB printing, make the next generation MSI GAMING motherboards stand out once again.

DOMINATE THE GAME WITH LOWEST LATENCY

Get ready to crush your enemies on the battlefield with MSI® GAMING LAN, featuring carefully selected components to ensure the best online gaming experience without lag.

INTEL® WI-FI AC & BLUETOOTH

The MSI® GAMING motherboards come with an easily unpluggable Intel® Wi-Fi / Bluetooth antennas. The support of 802.11 AC and Bluetooth 4.2 ensures that you have the fastest available transfer speed.

Share your Screen with Intel® Wireless DisPlay (Intel® WiDi) Intel® WiDi for Home or Pro WiDi for Business allows you wirelessly send movies, photos, presentations, and more from MSI’s GAMING motherboard to an HDTV.

GAMING OPTIMIZED BANDWITH MANAGEMENT

Dedicated to giving you the best online gaming experience with optimized traffic prioritization and low latency, MSI GAMING LAN Manager automatically classifies and prioritizes the latency-sensitive applications for online games.

MSI GAMING LAN MANAGER

Automatically prioritizes games above other applications
Allows you to change applications' traffic priority
Allows you to customize bandwidth for each application

STUDIO GRADE SOUND WITH AUDIO BOOST

With Audio Boost we're delivering the highest sound quality through the use of premium quality audio components. That way, you can enjoy breathtaking, crystal clear sound and music through 8-channel HD Audio or high impendence headphones and truly dominate the game.

- Golden Audio Jacks
- Isolated Audio PCB
- Chemi-Con Audio Capacitors
- Front Dedicated Headphone Out
- Separated Audio Layers
- ANTI-POPCORN NOIS

GAME BOOST

Overclock your system instantly and generate more FPS in games with 1 push of a button using Game Boost! You can also easily enable XMP using the XMP button in Click BIOS.

GAMING HOTKEY

Gaming Hotkey enables more functionality using your own keyboard. Simply assign functions to any key and launch your favorite games, load overclocking profiles or do real-time overclocking with the push of a single button. The possibilities are endless!

- Customize any shortcut on your keyboard
- User friendly, easy to use application
- 1 key load up of your favorite game

TOTAL FREEDOM, MAXIMUM EASE

Easily program your most used commands to be executed with a single keystroke. You are free to choose any key you want.

Shortcut Hotkeys

Assign your own keyboard special functions

Windows keys

Quick launch any application or folder

MSI® Smart keys

Quick launch of mail, browser or more

Login Keys

One press to login (program passwords)

2x FASTER MSI USB 3.1 GEN2

Transferring your favorite games, music and movies over USB has never been faster. USB 3.1 Gen2 enables lightning fast transfer speeds up to 10Gb/s!

Benefits

- 2X faster than USB 3.1 Gen1
- 20X faster than USB 2.0
- Up to 10Gbps data transfer bandwidth
- Boost transfer rate for your PC and peripherals

FRONT USB 3.1 Gen1

With a cleverly placed USB 3.1 Gen1 front pin header on MSI motherboards, you can connect up to 4 USB 3.1 Gen1 devices directly to the front of your PC Chassis. This way you can easily enjoy fast USB speeds without having to use the hard-to-reach USB ports at the rear.

PUSH YOUR SSD HARDER WITH M.2

M.2 doesn’t need any power- or signal-cables and with a very small footprint M.2 is the storage connector of the future replacing traditional HDDs/SSDs.

TURBO U.2 HOST CARD (OPTIONAL)

The U.2 Host Card delivers performance up to 32 Gb/s and allows support for next gen 2.5-inch SSDs using the U.2 connector. A redriver chip is added to increase data transfer speed.

ENHANCED CPU OVERVOLTAGE PROTECTION

Onboard overvoltage protection prevents overvoltage and short-circuit damage of the CPU and other components. A red LED near the 24 pin CPU power connector let you know that overvoltage protection is activated for easier troubleshooting.

EASY DIAGNOSTIC

MSI EZ Debug LED is an easy troubleshooting tool using 3 LEDs to indicate CPU / Memory / VGA operation every time you boot up your system. Run into trouble? Use the LEDs to easily identify the source of your problem and get back into operation quickly.

STEELSERIES CERTIFIED

Get ready to enjoy the best gaming experience with MSI & SteelSeries!

Enthusiast gaming gear brand SteelSeries has officially approved MSI GAMING motherboards as ‘SteelSeries Certified (SSC)’. This certification is based on the performance demands and stability of MSI GAMING motherboards and SteelSeries products. Your SteelSeries headset, mouse and other top quality gaming gear works best on MSI GAMING motherboards.

GAMING CERTIFIED

Our GAMING motherboards are tested in our gaming lab, internet cafes and together with the world’s best eSports players to make sure you get top performance and reliability in the world’s most popular games. Through 24-hour on- and offline game testing, MSI ensures the onboard network configuration, audio reception and FPS performance are tested and tuned to perfection for you to enjoy the best possible gameplay experience.

Only the motherboards that pass this test receive the GAMING CERTIFIED status and are considered true MSI® GAMING motherboards.

MILITARY CLASS 4 COMPONENTS

DARK CHOKE

Dark Choke uses the special core design and allows the Dark Choke to run at a lower temperature with higher capacity and better power efficiency and stability.

DARK CAP

With their aluminum core design, Dark CAPs has been a staple in high-end motherboard designs and provides lower Equivalent Series Resistance (ESR) as well as its over-10-year Lifespan.

HUMIDITY PROTECTION

Reduction in moisture absorption helps prevent "Conductive Anodic Filament". Untreated PCB's can have 10x higher failure rate.

HIGH TEMPERATURE PROTECTION

All key components used in MSI motherboards have all passed military testing ensuring stable operation in the harshest environments.

CIRCUIT PROTECTION

Carefully selected materials, multiple PCB layers and shielding result in the best circuit protection for our GAMING motherboards.

ESD PROTECTION

Each and every I/O port is protected against the hazards of Electro Static Discharge.

EMI PROTECTION

All MSI motherboards comply with strict American FCC regulations and reduce the impact of Electromagnetic Interference.

OPTIMIZED FOR MULTIPLE GRAPHICS CARDS
AMD CROSSFIRE SUPPORT

This motherboard supports AMD CrossFire. Optimal PCI-Express slot placement allows for better fitting and airflow.

That way, you can enjoy the best graphics at the highest framerate jumping from your screen when running an AMD CrossFire™ setup.

PREVENT DAMAGE!

Worried about damaging the PCI-Express slot or your graphics card because of the weight?

MSI® VGA ARMOR

With the increased size and weight of modern high end graphics cards, traditional PCI Express slots often show signs of bending or even breaking. Meet VGA Armor, strengthened PCI Express slots using more solder points to make sure you never have to worry about breaking off any of the slots.

OTHERS

NO STRENGTHENING

MSI® VGA ARMOR

REINFORCED, HEAVY SOLDERED CONNECTIONS

THE ALL NEW, AWARD-WINNING CLICK BIOS 5

Explore the greatly improved, award-winning CLICK BIOS 5 and use it to tune your system to maximum performance to get the most out of your games. MSI CLICK BIOS 5 is the next generation UEFI BIOS with optimizations for Windows 10.

Control your system in two modes: EZ mode, for the most used settings and functions. Advanced mode for more detailed settings and fine-tuning options to boost your system’s performance.

- Variety of options to boost your game performance
- Next gen UEFI BIOS with award winning design
- High-resolution multi language scalable font
- Easy to use
- Advanced overclocking

GAMING DEVICE PORT

MSI Gaming Device Port is optimized to deliver the best connectivity for high end gaming mice to fully utilize its speed. You can customize your mouse’ DPI to change accuracy and program macro combinations using the easy to use Mouse Master software to perform multiple commands with just one click.

Gaming benefits

- More responsive, faster reactions
- Customizable mouse settings
- Customizable mouse accuracy (DPI)
- Program macros for multiple actions in 1 click
- Smoother gameplay

Technical benefits

- 3x more gold than regular connectors
- 10x longer lifetime when plugging/un-plugging
- Prevents oxidation

OBS STREAMING SOFTWARE

Share your gaming achievements with the world! Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is world’s most popular open source software for video recording and live streaming. Show your friends your gaming progress live.

Plenty of plugins

Allowing developers to create their own unique plugins and complete control of their streaming experience.

Optimized video quality

OBS records videos using small file size,but with perfect image and sound quality, without lag.

Easy to share

Live streaming to your favorite video sharing websites such as Twitch, YouTube, DailyMotion, Hitbox and many more.

Webcam supported

OBS supports almost any webcam. DirectShow capture device support (webcams, capture cards, etc).

Multiple profiles

Add different profiles, each of them with its own settings. Easy to use OBS for anyone, in any situation.

Plenty of plugins

Allowing developers to create their own unique plugins and complete control of their streaming experience.

Optimized video quality

OBS records videos using small file size,but with perfect image and sound quality, without lag.

OVERCLOCKING MADE EASY

Outperform your competition with the MSI® GAMING APP which allows simultaneous control of both your Motherboard and Graphics Card's overclocking.

ON-SCREEN SPEED & TEMPERATURES

Real-time monitor GPU Core, DRAM Frequency, GPU & CPU Temperatures and much more, in game or in other fullscreen applications, customizable to your preference.

A DIFFERENT VIEW ON GAMING

MSI Dragon Eye allows you to watch a YouTube video or Twitch Stream while playing a game simultaneously. Simply add a link or stream to the Dragon Eye application and select the size, position, volume and transparency and start gaming. With a few hotkeys you can start/pause your video or set the volume.

CPU-Z MSI GAMING EDITION

MSI has worked closely with CPUID to develop this special edition of CPU-Z featuring the famous MSI GAMING dragon. Use CPU-Z to gather key information on the main devices of your system, such as your CPU speed, Memory speed and timings, motherboard BIOS version and much more.

SSD NOT FAST ENOUGH? TRY MSI RAMDISK!

Get an unlimited RAMDisk for free (worth $35) with MSI GAMING motherboards. RAMDisk allows you to create a virtual drive from your system memory, enabling speeds up to 25x faster than a modern SSD. You can load complete games, speed up your browser or your page file significantly increasing system performance! You even increase your SSD's lifespan by using RAMDisk as it reduces unnecessary read and write operations to your SSD.

- Speed up system performance
- Speed up games, apps and browser
- Increase SSD lifespan