NZXT N7 Z490 Motherboard Review

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Overclocking

There really isn’t a lot to say. Despite having somewhat lackluster VRM’s on paper, the NZXT N7 Z490 did its job with absolutely no drama or technical issues of any kind. The VRM’s aren’t amazing, but they are enough to get the Core i9-10900K to 5.1GHz all core with absolute stability. This was done by setting the CPU vCore to 1.365v and that’s it. LLC and other settings were left on automatic which worked very well. Working with the BIOS was the same as working with an ASRock or ASUS board with minimal differences. Thus, there was no real learning curve where that was concerned.

Despite the power output of the VRM’s being far more limited than most of the motherboards I’ve tested using the Z490 chipset, I found the NZXT N7 Z490 to be adequate in this regard. This included stability, ease of configuration, and of course, actually clocking the CPU to the desired clock speeds. Memory clocking was also as easy as could be. I simply turned XMP on and that was it. This allowed me to fully leverage the DDR4 3600MHz modules I was using with ease. I never saw problems doing this either, nor were their issues clocking both RAM and CPU simultaneously when desired.

VRM temperatures typically sat in the mid-30c range (33-34c) while idle and upwards of 65c under load as shown by HWInfo64. That being said, this uses PCB mounted thermal sensors and their locations aren’t always the best for keeping the measurements accurate. Externally, these never exceeded 130F or so, which puts them in a good spot for a budget offering.

Dan Dobrowolski
Dan has been writing motherboard reviews for the past 15 years, with the first decade or so writing for [H}ard|OCP. Dan brings his depth of knowledge about motherboards and their components to his reviews here at The FPS Review to help you select the best one for your needs.

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