NZXT N5 Z690 Motherboard Review

Intel's latest Z690 chipset brought a revolutionary set of technologies to market and proved a step in the right direction after the frankly lacklustre Z490 and Z590 product lineup and gave the likes of AMD some real competition again, while also putting them at the forefront of the market in terms of futureproof features. Not only did Z690 bring a variety of new technologies with it; to go along with the new chipset, but we also saw a unique set of brand new Intel processors with hybrid core technologies. We also saw these processors becoming the first available to market with support for DDR5; the fastest memory we have ever seen but it comes at a price, and this is why, even though Z690 has support for DDR5, it isn't limited to it and plenty of boards are still using DDR4. One such board is the new N5 Z690 from NZXT. NZXT N5 Z690 The NZXT N5 Z690 is the first of its kind amongst the rest of the motherboards sold by NZXT. This board is the first time we have seen a lower tier board compared to other boards they've previously released which have been typically seen as part of the "N7" line-up with the most notable feature being the clean shielding that covers pretty much all of the board and matches perfectly with NZXT's own brand of cases. This newer N5 approach from NZXT forgoes the shields and instead focuses on making a board simplistic, full of features and as easy to build with as possible. The N5 of course would be a pretty pointless product if it was the exact same as the N7 but with less stuff. so what makes this board different? There are actually a few things about this board that make it stand out. One worth noting is the power delivery, where this board features fewer phases for the CPU power compared to the N7, which may or may not end up providing differing results. However, comparing the two boards may prove somewhat unfair as they're going to be aimed at slightly different audiences. So where does this board sit in the market? To properly find out we are going to have to have a look at the kind of performance we see out of this board and how that places it compared to other boards. The price will also be a large contributor here and for me personally, I want to see if this lower end model in NZXTs lineup gives a compelling argument for buying it over the more premium boards, especially if you're trying to save a buck and still get all the performance you can along with the features you crave. Features Designed with Intel® Z690 ChipsetCompatible with Intel® 12th Generation Core™ i9, Core™ i7, Core™ i5 processorsPCIe Gen 5.0 supportIntel® Wi-Fi 6E wireless connectivity and Bluetooth V5.2Four M.2 connectors for storage devicesSupports DDR4 memory overclocking speeds of up to 5000MHz and XMP8-channel high-definition audioIntegrated NZXT CAM Support For in-depth specifications, please visit the official Motherboard product page. Video Packaging & Unboxing In typical NZXT fashion, the box is simple and clean, featuring nothing more than a bit of text and a frontal picture of the board. The back of the box is a lot more full. It has a huge wall of specifications, detailing pretty much all the information you could want to know about the board. On the inside of the outer sleeve is a very plain, brown cardboard box with no discerning marks. On the inside of that plain brown box, we can find the motherboard sitting within a tray of foam to keep it safe and in place within the box. The included accessories are pretty bare-bones; a manual, four M.2 screws with a single stand-off, two Wi-Fi antennas and four SATA cables. Nothing extra or unnecessary, just everything you need to get up and running. A Closer Look Now let's take a look at the board in closer detail. Unlike previous boards from NZXT, this board features almost no cover plates for the board, leaving most of the board exposed. This gives me the impression that it's meant to be a more budget friendly board and would be a good choice for professionals who don't need the fanciest board on the market and are instead focused on function. The back of the board is very bare. No backplate, just a bare PCB with a view of the traces.. There is one interesting feature back here though that we will have a closer look at that soon. Being Z690, we have the newest Intel LGA 1700 socket with support for the latest Intel 12th generation Alder Lake processors. There's also ample room around the CPU socket for larger air coolers with no obstruction. Right next to the CPU socket is where the memory slots are which support dual channel DDR4 memory, likely to keep this board as affordable as possible. They also feature a single clip design which is becoming more common as of late. Above the CPU socket is the location of the EPS power connectors of which this board uses an 8+4 pin design for power delivery. Moving across the top of the board to above the memory slots, we can find the CPU fan header and an AIO pump header, along with a regular system fan header. Something else we can see up here is a pair of NZXT RGB headers for connecting your NZXT RGB products directly to the motherboard to control within their CAM software. Moving down from there, we see the ATX power connector in its standard location. Going down some more is where we find our first USB headers on the board. Here we have a single USB 3 internal header and a USB type-C internal header. Moving down the board once again, we see yet another USB 3.0 header, though this time at a 90-degree angle. There's also four SATA ports, which feels like enough as SATA is getting used far less these days for pretty much everything other than server or legacy applications. Having just four headers on the beard means that NZXT have included all of the cables you will ever need to connect your SATA powered storage. Once we reach the bottom of the board we can see another two fan headers, the front panel headers and the pins used to clear CMOS. Further along the bottom of the board is a single USB 2.0 internal header. This could limit your options for components in the system but you could still get a splitter to expand the number of ports you have and most cases coming to market don't include this speed USB now anyway. The board has three PCIe physical 16x slots, . We can also see three M.2 Slots here, with two of them just out in the open whilst the top one is underneath a heatsink. Something else we can see here is the pre-instaled Wi-Fi card. This just sits in full view and takes away from the aesthetics of the board somewhat, and would have looked much nicer with a black PCB. The wires for the card are router toward the rear I/O of the board where they terminate into the connectors for the antennas that are included in the box. You might remember that we were given four M.2 screws but only had three slots on the front of the board, so why is there an extra screw? Well, that's because this board features the inclusion of a fourth M.2 slot on the back of the motherboard. This is normally something you only see on ITX boards but for some reason, NZXT has chosen to put one here on this full-sized ATX board. With the board stripped down of all of its removable parts, not much has really changed, yes the board looks even more baron now but compared to the other boards in NZXTs lineup once the armour is removed, it doesn't look much different. The chipset cooler is fairly substantial. It's a passively cooled design that has an aesthetic metal plate on it that matches the design of the VRM cooler on the board, which we'll look at soon. The rear I/O of the board is on the more basic side. It features eight USB connectors; one of which is a type-C connector and two of which are USB 2.0, but they do still manage to include a BIOS flashback port, which is always a nice touch. The back of the board also has the connectors for the Wi-Fi antennas, a HDMI port and a single Ethernet port. When we look at the audio option on the back of the board we can see a very basic collection, it's just enough to get you by, but only three 3.5mm headers with different purposes and no optical SPDIF connector. VRM Overview The VRMs on the N5 featured are an 8+1 design, with eight of the phases being for the Vcore and the ninth being used for the iGPU. All of the phases are made by Vishay and are rated at 50 Amps each. There is also an additional phase used for VCCIN auxiliary, which is used for other parts of the CPU and is organised in a high and low side configuration using Sinopower MOSFETS which are driven by an Anpec single phase PWM controller. The nine main phases are all controlled by a Richtek dual channel PWM controller which can cater for up to 10 phases in total. The cooler for the VRMs is entirely passive with no heatpipes either. It's essentially a chunk of metal with some thermal pads for the heat to transfer and be dissipated though with lower powered MOSFETs, it shouldn't really need much more. BIOS Overview The Basic Input/Output System, or “BIOS” has many features and options that can be user-defined and altered to suit what you want to use the PC for. This includes basic settings like fan controls and more advanced settings like overclocking. The majority of features in a BIOS will be the same from one board to another but how they work and how to use them can differ, so we'll be looking at the bios to see specifics for this board so you know better how to use the BIOS if you find yourself with your hands on this board. EZ Mode EZ Mode is as its name describes, easy. It compresses everything into basic and easy to understand information with all of the controls being one or the other style options. Here, there isn't any options for customizability but instead focusses on getting your system up and running. The EZ Mode featured in this board has everything you could need to set up your PC, giving you a few options for fan profiles and even letting you select multiple XMP profiles if your memory has more than just one. Advanced Mode The main page in the advanced mode has nothing changable and is purely system information. The advanced tab of the advanced menu is where we find all of the different pages for configuring specific aspects of this board. From here you can find settings that would allow you to do things like enabling above 4G decoding and Resizable bar. The tools page is about as bare as it normally is in a BIOS, but that doesn't stop it from being useful. This is where we can see the option to flash the BIOS, which is incredibly useful to upgrade the feature set of the board and improve stability. The security page is also fairly simple. It features the secure boot option and the ability to set passwords, which may not be useful to you but in an environment like a school, being able to lock settings is vital, not that I expect you to use a board like this in a school. The boot menu is where you have the ability to change boot priority and enable fast boot. This page is one of the most important pages when setting up a PC as making sure you boot from the correct device is vital for installing windows. The last page in the BIOS is obviously the exit page, which is pretty self-explanatory. You have a few options for how you want to exit the BIOS, and to discard or save changes. Overclocking On the overclocking page, you have a few sub-pages where you can go into to adjust frequencies and voltages on certain components. This is also where you would go to apply XMP profiles and tweak them. Further down the overclocking page, we can find a total of ten user profiles that can easily be saved and loaded. PC Monitoring On the PC Monitoring page, we can see system voltages, temperatures and fan speeds. Going down this page is where we can find the ability to set profiles and custom fan curves to each of the fan headers. Software Overview The board has no RGB so the only software control you get with his board is the ability to adjust fan curves and monitor system temperatures. It's a little basic compared to other motherboard manufacturers but this is all you really need for a functional product. How We Test Here at eTeknix, we endeavour to disclose vital information regarding the benchmarking process so that readers can quantify the results and attempt to replicate them using their hardware. When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory, although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of motherboard, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Therefore, your experience may vary. Testing Your Own System We typically focus on commonly available benchmarks so that you too can run the same benchmarks on your own system. We hope this makes it easy for our readers to gauge the performance improvement available to them when they upgrade their own systems. Gaming Tests All games are run at their specified resolutions using the “high” settings or equivalent. We avoid using the Ultra settings as these often offer diminishing returns for performance vs visuals. Test Bench ProcessorIntel 12th Gen Alder Lake Core i9-12900KMotherboardChanges Per ReviewMemoryCorsair Dominator RGB 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3600MHzGraphicsGigabyte RTX 3080 Gaming OCStorageSeagate FireCuda 530 2TBPower SupplyCorsair RM1000x 1000WSoftwareWindows 10 Pro 21H1DriversNVIDIA GeForce Build 472.12 CPU Performance To test the CPU performance in our motherboard reviews, we use a variety of software that can test both single-core and multi-core performance in different ways. While these tests are aimed at the processor more than the motherboard, it does give us a chance to analyse the power delivery that's being fed directly to the socket and the components that are needed on the motherboard for the CPU to perform at the highest level possible. Tests that are run include CPU specific tests, along with render based benchmarks and calculation tests that give us the very best idea of how a specific board compares with the competition when using the same hardware Cinebench R23 Looking at the single-threaded Cinebench test, the N5 scored exactly as we would have expected it to, right in the middle of the group. The N5 drops off a little in the multi-threaded test but still ends up with performance on par with what I would expect for a board of this calibre. Geekbench 5 Whilst the performance in the Geekbench single-threaded score was on the lower end of testing, it was still in the same ballpark as the other boards. We can see a weakness in the multi-threaded score here, but this is a trend amongst the DDR4 boards we tested. They all performed on the lower end of the scale with a significant gap between them and the DDR5 boards, though when we look at the DDR4 boards on their own, we see that the performance of the N5 is where we would expect it to be. Compression & Decompression We again see the effects of DDR4 where compression saw much worse results than the DDR5 boards we tested. When we isolate the DDR4 boards we can see that the N5 has a bit of a dip in performance compared to the other boards but is still within the threshold. Our DDR4 boards still ended up near the bottom of the charts in the decompression test, but the bottleneck that we previously experienced is practically gone, only performing a small percentage worse than the rest of the boards. Rendering The N5 was the worst performer in Corona, but only by a single second, so even though it was the worst performer, it is still close to the other boards in performance and gets a pass in this test. Calculation Performance Performance in this test is so close in terms of speed that the only real way to fail this test is to be two seconds slower, which sounds like a tight window, but given that we are looking at performance differences within the nano-second territory, two seconds is quite the difference. The N5 is near the worse performer in this test but still ended up with very close performance when we look at how long it took to finish the test, with less than a full second between the N5 and the fastest board, meaning this is another pass for the N5. Super Pi had the N5 performing right in the middle of the group with a time that is better than the average from the boards we tested. Futuremark Performance The N5 was on the lower end of the performance scale again in this test but it still fell within the range of the other boards, so once again, this is a pass for this board. The bottom four boards in this test were once again, all of the DDR4 boards that we tested. There was certainly a bottleneck here but it was very minor and still falls within the performance range of the rest of the boards. PCMark may be the first fail for the N5. For some reason our score was significantly lower than the rest of the boards we tested against. This wasn't even down to DDR4 versus DDR5. It just performed poorly. To clarify a little, we had retested this board multiple times on this test, coming back to it after other tests just to make sure that our results weren't an anomaly and this result was consistent between all of the times we re-ran this test. Gaming Performance We use a few different gaming benchmarks to test real-world performance of the components we are testing; We keep all of the hardware the same for each test, only swapping out the component we are testing for a fair test. For motherboard testing, we use the high presets for our games, set to 1080p. Unigine Superposition The N5 ended up giving us the best scorer in Unigine Superposition by a few points, obviously making this test a win for the N5. Shadow of the Tomb Raider Experience Lara Croft’s defining moment as she becomes the Tomb Raider. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Lara must master a deadly jungle, overcome terrifying tombs, and persevere through her darkest hour. As she races to save the world from a Maya apocalypse, Lara will ultimately be forged into the Tomb Raider she is destined to be. Available now on Steam. Shadow of the Tomb Raider had a clear preference for DDR5 given the placement of the boards in the chart, but the scores were still very close to one another and the N5 even ended up being the best of our DDR4 boards. Metro Exodus Metro Exodus is a first-person shooter video game developed by 4A Games and published by Deep Silver. It is the third instalment in the Metro video game trilogy based on Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novels, following the events of Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light. It was released in 2019 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Stadia and in 2020 for Amazon Luna. A Linux and macOS conversion was released in 2021. An enhanced version of the game was released for Microsoft Windows on May 6, 2021, and was later released for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on June 18, 2021. Available now on the Epic Game Store and Steam Metro Exodus doesn't have the same preference for faster memory as Tomb Raider, and the boards ended up with a much closer performance to each other. The N5 is nearer the bottom end of the performance but still where we want to see it amongst the others for us to consider it a pass in this test. World Of Tanks World of Tanks enCore RT is the demo of the updated Core graphics engine. It will let you know how well your PC will perform in World of Tanks with the updated Core engine. Available now here. The scores in this test were all very close to one another. The N5 didn't perform the best, but like the majority of the other tests, the performance is still where we would want to see it. When we turned Ray Tracing on in World of Tanks, we actually ended up seeing a bit of a relative improvement for the N5, but again, the scores are all so close to each other that all we are looking for is a pass or fail in relative performance, and here we see a pass. Memory Performance Unfortunately, we can only compare the scores on this board to the other DDR4 boards that we have, and amongst those, we see the performance that we would expect. This is just about a pass for the N5. The score is close enough to the other DDR4 boards that I'll allow it but we are dangerously close to a failure here because of the drop off from the N7 to the N5. This time around I won't be so kind to the N5. The DDR4 boards all perform about the same aside from the N5 which ends up having a big dip in performance compared to those other boards. Seemingly ashamed of the previous scores, the N5 steps up its game and ends up performing the best of the DDR4 boards, giving a clear pass in performance for NZXT on this one. Web Browser Performance Google Octane saw the N5 being amongst the top performers, meaning we have another clear pass for NZXT. The N5 doesn't perform quite as well in Mozilla Kraken, but it still falls into the category of a passing grade. WebXPRT has the N5 performing right near the bottom of the charts, but still with an acceptable score. VRM Temperatures At idle, the VRMs averaged out at 28.7 degrees. This is perfectly acceptable temperatures for the VRMs and shows how NZXT does passive cooling well. When we ran Prime95 to stress the VRMs and get load temperatures for them, we saw a good result, averaging out at 55.1 degrees. This is a little warm but the cooler is entirely passive and we tested on an open-air test bench. In a PC case you could expect to see an improvement as you will be getting some airflow over the components, but even with these results being a little warm, they are still well within what we consider to be good temperatures. Power Consumption At idle, this board was the least power hungry that we've tested. It was sipping power from the wall whilst others were far ahead of it, getting close to doubling the power consumption whilst doing nothing. We previously had an issue with testing the power consumption under load on this board and the N7, we were getting results far higher than we would expect from these boards. Once we had flashed a new BIOS onto the board, we saw a significant improvement in the power draw. Now with these improved results, we can see that the N5 actually performs very well here; falling below the majority of the other boards, this could easily fit comfortably within a professional's PC. 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.