NZXT Announces the N7 B650E AM5 Motherboard

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 an upper 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.