NZXT N5 Z690 Motherboard Review

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.