NZXT N7 Z790 Motherboard Review

How Much Does It Cost?

The NZXT N7 Z790 is one of the more modestly priced Z790 motherboards, especially considering NZXT are a premium brand and have really taken care to make this a very uniquely NZXT design that matches their other hardware. You can pick it up for just £299 for either the black version I reviewed, or the same for the white version here.

Overview

There are faster motherboards on the market, and even ones with much more I/O, faster I/O, more and fastest M.2 mounts, and more impressive cooling, but largely, they all cost more, a LOT more. When it comes down to it though, the NZXT N7 Z790 has enough features.

The VRM and heatsinks aren’t huge, but they’re competent and cool enough to ensure solid gaming performance. If you’re building a high-end video rendering rig, it’s unlikely you’ll buy this motherboard, so I see no issues there.

There’s no PCIe 5.0 M.2, but honestly, 3 x PCIe Gen 4 M.2 is likely all most gamers will need anyway, as Gen 5 drives are still extremely new and expensive, and Gen 4 is still hilariously fast for modern PC gaming, so again, why spend more if you don’t need to.

The rear I/O doesn’t have a lot of super fast data and dispaly technlogy, but again, it doesn’t need it. There’s a single Type-C 20 Gbps, which is great for a single NVMe external drive, if you have one. However, there’s enough USB ports for headset, microphon, camera, keyboard, mouse, controller, etc, for a typical day-to-day gaming PC build.

If you’re an NZXT fan, the aesthetics are a huge win, but honestly, this motherboard is just clean and tidy and I think it’ll look great in any other brands case. Plus, if you’re a modder, those removable metal panels are pretty easy to customise with vinyl and paint.

Should I Buy One?

NZXT has a really competent board here. It’s not the fastest (or the slowest), and largely I think it’s fair to say its performance is average. But keep in mind, it’s being compared to models that can be wildly more expensive in our benchmarks, which only goes to make its £299.99 retail price even more impressive given the overall design. For high-end content creation it’s a bit short on features, but for a slick looking gaming PC build? It’s right on the money.