NZXT Announces the N7 B650E AM5 Motherboard

[TheLostSwede]

Last week NZXT announced its high-end Z790 motherboard for Intel's upcoming 13th gen Core processors and this week, the company is following up that announcement with its first AM5 motherboard for the Ryzen 7000 series, in the shape of the N7 B650E. The board comes with either white or black shielding, although the PCB is black in both cases, as is the rear I/O cover. NZXT has gone for a mid-range feature set, with a 16+2+1 Smart Power Stage design rated at 90 A, which places it on par with ASRock's B650E Steel Legend. Speaking of ASRock, it has been NZXT's OEM in the past, but we can't find a board with the same general layout as the N7 B650E in ASRocks' lineup this time around, so this is either a proper custom design or NZXT has changed its OEM partner.

The board has one PCIe 5.0 x16 slot and two PCIe 4.0 x16 slots, with one having four lanes of bandwidth and the other two lanes of bandwidth. The board also features three M.2 slots, one PCIe 5.0 and two PCIe 4.0, one of which is limited to two lanes of PCIe bandwidth. Other features include 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, a WiFi 6E/Bluetooth 5.2 combo module, an HDMI 2.1 port, four SATA ports and sadly what appears to be a 10 Gbps rather than a 20 Gbps USB-C port around the back. There's also a front header for another 10 Gbps USB-C port. NZXT has all the standard features you'd expect to see on a modern motherboard such as rear mounted clear CMOS and BIOS flashing buttons, debugging LEDs, albeit the basic kind and a good spread of fan headers and RGB LED connectors. A full set of audio connectors are also present and the audio chip of choice is the Realtek ALC1220. The only real hurdle for this board to become a success is going to be the price tag, as NZXT lists the board on its site for US$349.99/€429.99/£429.99, which is a very steep asking price for what's on offer here.



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[Tsukiyomi91]

$350? yikes.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

NZXT has gone for an upper mid-range feature set,

a bit of exaggeration here, lower mid-range is more like it.

 

[TheLostSwede]

a bit of exaggeration here, lower mid-range is more like it.

Can we compromise on mid-range?

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

Can we compromise on mid-range?

can vendors compromise without skimping quality? pretty hard unless you don't mind it being very basic, minimal in I/O, PCIe lanes etc just to keep the price reasonable.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Can we compromise on mid-range?

only if you include 4 more rear USB ports.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

It's official: NZXT is in a fucking rut when it comes to their motherboard designs. They've made the same damn board for how many gens now?

 

[phanbuey]

It's official: NZXT is in a fucking rut when it comes to their motherboard designs. They've made the same damn board for how many gens now?

Milking that cash cow as long as they can.

 

[helion]

Z790 version of this mobo is 300$. Top of the line Intel chipset is still 50$ cheaper than B650E. XD

AMD needs to get their s*** together. This is bad.

 

[Ownedtbh]

349.99
No post code, no thx

 

[AusWolf]

I was going to say what a shame NZXT doesn't make m-ATX boards, but for such a price, I wouldn't even touch them with a pole.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Another nail in Zen 4's coffin if this price insanity persists beyond Xmas. With added cooler costs, memory costs and lunatic MB pricing and no low end cpu's, Intel is looking in a good position. Now of course Z790, H760 etc may also be criminally priced, but people can stick RL in Alder lake MB's and use DDR4 and won't need water cooling for top parts.

 

[AusWolf]

Another nail in Zen 4's coffin if this price insanity persists beyond Xmas. With added cooler costs, memory costs and lunatic MB pricing and no low end cpu's, Intel is looking in a good position. Now of course Z790, H760 etc may also be criminally priced, but people can stick RL in Alder lake MB's and use DDR4 and won't need water cooling for top parts.

You don't need top-end watercooling. Check out the latest article on TPU's front page.

Other than that, I agree. B650 boards should be considerably cheaper to sell well. DDR5 also. Low-end CPUs will come later, I guess, but since the whole platform is a niche at this point, AMD is in no rush, I suppose.

 

[Zubasa]

You don't need top-end watercooling. Check out the latest article on TPU's front page.

Other than that, I agree. B650 boards should be considerably cheaper to sell well. DDR5 also. Low-end CPUs will come later, I guess, but since the whole platform is a niche at this point, AMD is in no rush, I suppose.

I doubt it is AMD themselves that is causing the huge increase in board price.
The Z790 boards are on pre-order here, and guess what all of them cost significantly more than their Z690 counterpart despite being very similar.
As if the board partner wants to somehow keep their mining profit margins with whatever means necessary.

 

[gasolina]

Another ecs mobo....i would pick biostar maxsun or even soyo than ecs....

 

[Kohl Baas]

Is there anyone still buying anything from NZXT? I wouldn't buy nails to my coffin from a company that treats it's own support as a running joke...

 

[Minus Infinity]

You don't need top-end watercooling. Check out the latest article on TPU's front page.

Other than that, I agree. B650 boards should be considerably cheaper to sell well. DDR5 also. Low-end CPUs will come later, I guess, but since the whole platform is a niche at this point, AMD is in no rush, I suppose.

Will low end come later. For Zen 3 they came at the last minute and were thrashed by AL. I did read the article BTW and still no way I would run a 7950X on air cooler. Even AMD recommend water cooling. I won't accept 95C as normal.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

349.99
No post code, no thx

More pricey than a Crosshair V Formula Z! (albeit a different platform and era)

 

[MRW332]

I really like these boards. Two things though: 1. They really need to put heatsinks of ALL of the NVME drives now that we're talking pcie4/5... I don't get that oversight. 2. I still like the look, though it would be nice to see them try something new with the design. It's remained pretty much exactly the same design for several generations now - Seems NZXT is being a tad bit lazy there. Overall though, this looks a bit more competent than the B550 series, so that's good. Still looks great... but a couple small easy cheap updates/adjustments would have been appreciated.

 

[MRW332]

Will low end come later. For Zen 3 they came at the last minute and were thrashed by AL. I did read the article BTW and still no way I would run a 7950X on air cooler. Even AMD recommend water cooling. I won't accept 95C as normal.

You could run it on air cooling. You'd just need a substantial cooler and probably should undervolt it slightly to tame it a bit. My 7600x undervolted runs great and surprisingly cool..I think that 95c got overblown a bit. Slight undervolt and drop the power limit a bit and optimize your cores and you could easily run a 7950x under 90c under load with less power draw and 95%+ of the performance.