NZXT N5 Z690 Motherboard Review

How Much Does it Cost?

Coming in at around $239.99/£209.99, the N5 falls within the cheaper end of the spectrum for Z690 boards. Compared to some other options that you could get, it actually doesn’t seem like it would be that bad of an option for you if you were on a budget and wanted the latest features.

Added Value

What comes included in the box is the bare minimum with the only thing that could really be considered an accessory, the SATA cables, but at least we were provided with enough of them to fill all of the ports the motherboard has, so there’s no need to go out and buy more.

Build Quality & Design

In terms of design, this board is fairly basic, but that is on purpose. This is meant to be the budget option. We don’t see them cutting corners with the goal of making it as cheap as possible, and the board is still fully featured for a modern board with the minor omissions of non-essentials like RGB, which is a premium addition anyway. The boards design makes it easy to work with, finding things is easy and installing things is easy too. We had no issues when using it and found that it would actually make for a very good option for a first time builder, especially in combination with an NZXT case and that matching aesthetics..

Build quality is much of what you would expect from NZXT, high quality and carefully precise. Everything fits together very well without any issue, and the metal used on the cooling solution feels of a good quality with a finish that perfectly matches the same as we see on cases from NZXT, which is part of the point of this board. It is meant to fit perfectly with your other NZXT products and fullfill that ecosystem.

Performance

In general, the performance of this board was slightly below average, but for the price point it is easily forgivable, and with some headroom in terms of overclocking, you could quite easily end up with a higher performing board for quite a low cost.

Overview

The NZXT N5 ended up being pretty much what it set out to be, a cheaper and less featured version of the N7 boards. This ends up working in the favour of the board because I feel like the slightly worse performance doesn’t make a difference to my final thoughts. Yes it showed some lower than expected performance here and there and ended up being the most power-hungry board we tested, but for the price, it’s hard to argue with. You are still getting performance in the same ball park as the other boards we tested simply because the motherboard contributes very little to the overall performance of a system. Instead, it’s really down to the individual and the features they’re looking for and if the price reflects what they can afford and this board does a very good job of placing itself in the budget category.

Should I Buy One?

If you are working on a small budget then this may end up being something you’ll want to consider. Being DDR4 seems at first glance like an odd choice but the cost of DDR4 is significantly cheaper than DDR5 and as a result, meant that the cost of the system can remain on the cheaper side and still give you the features and performance of the latest 12th gen Intel CPUs.

I would also recommend that you consider this board as a first time builder. The simpler design and features make it surprisingly fool-proof, which is a big plus for budding first-time builders. The combination of this board and an NZXT case would make for a very simple build process as NZXT products generally are, like how their cases tend to have the front panel header as a single solid piece. It’s just simple and means that there is absolutely no way to get it wrong as it is designed to fit perfectly together. It’s little things like this that I feel NZXT set out to do on purpose, and it clearly pays off in dividends.