NZXT N7 Z390 ATX Motherboard Review

Photo Gallery

As with the previous Z370 release, the new Z390 model has that heavily armoured finish. Honestly, I think it looks absolutely amazing. As you can see, ours is white, but they make an all-black one too. What’s cool is that all the heatsink covers are also available in glossy blue, red, or purple.

Honestly, there’s one more version. Why they didn’t send me this version, I don’t know. Just look how cool it is!

Connections

The motherboard is very well equipped, with all the usual SATA and USB 3.0 ports down one side.

Got lots of fans? No problem, as you get a whopping 7 fan headers right on the motherboard. That means you can easily take full control of your cooling scheme. Plus, with 6W per channel and ZeroRPM modes, you’re not short on options here.

USB

More USB ports, and plenty of them. Handy if you’re using a lot of AIO pumps, RGB, and similar, as they often rely on the USB 2.0 headers for control.

The board comes equipped with USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, 2 X 3.1 Gen 1, and 6 x USB 2.0 externally. However, that’s not including extra ports on the rear I/O.

RGB LED ARGB ETC

As you might expect, there are all the usual lighting outputs too, three in total, so you can hook up all your strip lighting and more.

POWER!

Along the top of the VRM, there’s even more armour. Just behind the top edge, a single 8-pin CPU connector, as well as fan and AIO_Pump headers.

More Armour

There’s armour over all of the M.2 slots, which keeps the motherboard looking fresh and clean. Plus, they’ll help protect your drives too, which is handy. There are two full-size PCIe lanes too, so multi-GPU configurations shouldn’t be an issue.

Socket

The board has a decent set of chokes/VRM on it, as well as a pretty sizeable heatsink around the CPU hardware. It’s nothing crazy though, this isn’t an extreme OC board. However, it’ll be more than enough to push the flagship i9-99xx CPUs easily enough.

DDR4

The motherboard supports memory speeds of 3866+ DDR4. So, pretty much any memory kit really, albeit the upper limit will have more to do with your CPU choice and overclocking, as per any motherboard really.

Rear I/O

Around the back, the NZXT N7 Z390 features a built-in backplate. There’s loads on here too. Built-in WiFi, easy to use power controls, loads of USB ports, HDMI, Gigabit LAN, 8-Channel Audio, and a cool debug LED panel.

On

The smaller armoured panels pop off easily enough; the M.2 covers, chipset cover, VRM cover, etc.

Off

Then you simply give the metal cover a hard pull and it’ll pop off.