NZXT Introduces N7 and N5 Z690 Motherboards for Intel Alder Lake Processors

NZXT is releasing two new motherboards for Intel Alder Lake processors: the N7 Z690 and N5 Z690. The N7 version has a metal shield over a large part of the circuit board. Both motherboards support Wi-Fi 6E.

According to the manufacturer the NZXT N7 Z690 is the more elaborate version of the two. The motherboard’s design resembles that of previous N-series versions and has metal protection over a large part of the PCB. The motherboard has three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, one PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, and four SATA ports.

The slightly cheaper N5 Z690 sacrifices some in terms of specifications, with slightly less overclocking options. There are eight vrm phases instead of twelve on the N7. Also, to keep the price down, it does not have a metal protection. However, all twelfth generation Intel CPUs are supported. In addition, the N5 has four PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, which is one port more than the more expensive N7 Z690.

Both the N7 and N5 support Wi-Fi 6E and bluetooth. There are four memory slots on both motherboards for a maximum of 128GB DDR4 in total. The NZXT N7 Z690 has a suggested retail price of 300 euros and is available in white and black. The N5 Z690 costs 240 euros.