MSI announced four new Arctic-branded motherboards, including the Tomahawk Arctic (in Z270 and H270 varieties) and the Mortar Arctic (with H270M and B250M variants). The new boards have a definitive “cool” factor with their all-white and silver aesthetics, and MSI’s most recent motherboard offerings come packed full of impressive features.
Tomahawked
The Tomahawk Arctic Z270 and H270 motherboards feature an ATX form factor and support Intel LGA 1151 processors, including the recently released Kaby Lake CPUs. The Z270 version offers memory support (up to DDR4-3800 with a 7th gen CPU) and can overclock K-series CPUs. The H270 Tomahawk Arctic limits memory support to DDR4-2400 and isn’t designed to overclock. Although the Z270 Tomahawk portends a superior feature set over its H270 counterpart, both motherboards have the same PCIe connectivity and are limited to two-way Crossfire support.
The storage support for the Z270 and H270 Tomahawk Arctic motherboards is also the same, with six SATA 6Gb/s ports and two M.2 ports that support SATA and PCIe 3.0 x4 SSDs. Both also support NVMe U.2 SSDs via a Turbo U.2 Host Card (sold separately). Both new Tomahawk Arctic motherboards also support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 with SATA storage devices, in addition to RAID 0 and 1 for M.2 PCIe SSDs.
The H270M Mortar Arctic motherboard was already announced last month at CES, but full specs and pricing weren’t disclosed at that time. We now know that the H270M white wonder will be accompanied by a B250M with the Mortar namesake. Both boards feature a micro-ATX form factor, in addition to support for Intel Kaby Lake and Skylake (LGA 1151) processors. Memory support for both of the boards is determined by which CPU you install, with 7th gen processors able to accommodate up to 64GB (4 x 16GB) of DDR4-2400 and 6th gen CPUs supporting up to 64GB (4 x 16GB) DDR4-2133
Storage for the H270M and B250M Mortar Arctic motherboards includes six SATA 6Gb/s ports and a single M.2 slot that supports PCIe and SATA SSDs. RAID support (0,1,5,10) is limited to the SATA interfaces, but both of the new Mortar Arctic motherboards also support U.2 SSDs via the Turbo U.2 Host Card.
Pricing/Availability
The Z270 and H270 Tomahawk Arctic motherboards go for $145 and $125, respectively, and the H270M and B250M Mortar Arctic are priced at $110 and $95, respectively. The Z270 Tomahawk Arctic will be available to preorder from online retailers soon, but the H270 Tomahawk Artic and the H270M and B250M Mortar Arctic boards are available now from Newegg.
| MSI Motherboard | Z270 Tomahawk Arctic | H270 Tomahawk Arctic | H270M Mortar Arctic | B250M Mortar Arctic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Form Factor | ATX | ATX | Micro-ATX | Micro-ATX |
| Socket | LGA 1151 | LGA 1151 | LGA 1151 | LGA 1151 |
| Chipset | Intel Z270 | Intel H270 | Intel H270 | Intel B250 |
| Memory Support | – Up to 64GB DDR4-3800 (7th Gen CPU) – Up to 64GB DDR4-3600 (6th Gen CPU) |
– Up to 64GB DDR4-2400 (7th Gen CPU) – Up to 64GB DDR4-2133 (6th Gen CPU) |
– Up to 64GB DDR4-2400 (7th Gen CPU) – Up to 64GB DDR4-2133 (6th Gen CPU) |
– Up to 64GB DDR4-2400 (7th Gen CPU) – Up to 64GB DDR4-2133 (6th Gen CPU) |
| Storage | – 6 x SATA 6Gb/s – 2 x M.2 slot (Key M) |
– 6 x SATA 6Gb/s – 2 x M.2 slot (Key M) |
– 6 x SATA 6Gb/s – 1 x M.2 slot (Key M) |
– 6 x SATA 6Gb/s – 1 x M.2 slot (Key M) |
| PCIe Connectivity | – 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 (x16/x4/x1) – 3 x PCIe 3.0 x1 |
– 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 (x16/x4/x1) – 3 x PCIe 3.0 x1 |
– 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 (x16/x4) – 2 x PCIe 3.0 x1 |
– 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 (x16/x4) – 2 x PCIe 3.0 x1 |
| Back Panel I/O | – 1 x PS/2 – 2 x USB 2.0 – 1 x DVI-D – 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A – 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C – 4 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A – 1 x HDMI – 1 x RJ45 – 5 x OFC audio jacks – 1 x Optical S/PDIF OUT |
– 1 x PS/2 – 2 x USB 2.0 – 1 x DVI-D port – 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A – 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C – 4 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A – 1 x HDMI – 1 x RJ45 – 5 x OFC audio jacks – 1 x Optical S/PDIF OUT |
– 1 x PS/2 – 2 x USB 2.0 – 1 x DVI-D – 1 x DisplayPort – 1 x HDMI – 1 x RJ45 – 3 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A – 1 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C – 6 x OFC audio jacks |
– 1 x PS/2 – 2 x USB 2.0 – 1 x DVI-D – 1 x DisplayPort – 1 x HDMI – 1 x RJ45 – 3 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A – 1 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C – 6 x OFC audio jacks |
| Networking | Intel I219-V Gigabit LAN | Intel I219-V Gigabit LAN | Intel I219-V Gigabit LAN | Intel I219-V Gigabit LAN |
| MSRP | $144.99 | $124.99 | $109.99 | $94.99 |
