INTRODUCTION

   The new Ryzen CPU family by AMD accompanied of course by their latest motherboard chipsets may be just around the corner but thanks to high-performance models like the 5800X3D/5900X/5950X AM4 socket CPUs both X570/S and B550 motherboards are still doing extremely well, especially among gamers, enthusiasts and even professionals. Needless to say, X570S based motherboards are currently leading the pack in terms of performance and available features but B550 motherboards clearly offer a far more appealing price/performance ratio for non-demanding consumers. NZXT released their very own N7 B550 model last year and since some of you came forward asking for me to do a review of it i did just that.

   Founded in 2004, NZXT is a leader of gaming products and services. Their award-winning products include computer cases, PC cooling solutions, RGB lighting kits, power supplies, and their free PC monitoring software, NZXT CAM. NZXT was created out of a passion for PC gaming and is dedicated to improving products and services to achieve extraordinary gaming experiences.

   As mentioned earlier the N7 B550 is yet another AM4 socket ATX size motherboard (as with all NZXT motherboards this too is available in black and white color) meaning it's fully compatible with the corresponding Ryzen 3,5,7 and 9 series CPUs (3000/4000/5000). Just like the X570/S the B550 is also a PCIe 4.0 motherboard and so out of its 4 available PCIe slots (2x16, 2x1) 1 is v4.0 (also EMI shielded and reinforced) and as for M.2 2242/2260/2280 slots one of the 2 available ones is also v4.0. The N7 B550 motherboard by NZXT also features a 16 phase design (12+2+2) and can be fitted with up to 4 DIMM modules for a total capacity of 128GB of DDR4 RAM at speeds surpassing 4666MHz. Needless to say, NZXT has also equipped the N7 B550 with the AX210 Dual-Band WiFi 6E/BT 5.2 wireless adapter by Intel alongside the ALC1220 HD audio and the RTL8125BG 2.5GbE (10/100/1000/2500) built-in cards by Realtek and as for available connectors we have 6 native SATA 6Gb/s ports (support RAID 0/1/5/10) and 2 NZXT RGB headers (5V/12V). Finally in terms of available outputs the NZXT N7 B550 offers a single HDMI v2.1 port, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 4 USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports (plus 2 internal ones), 4 USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (3 Type-A, 1 Type-C - plus 1 internal Type-C), 2.5GbE (10/100/1000/2500) RJ45 port, 2 wireless antennas, 5.1 channel jacks and an S/PDIF (BIOS flashback and clear CMOS buttons are also present on the rear I/O). So even though the N7 B550 may not look like the most feature-rich motherboard out there it does seem to tick most of the boxes that really matter so let's see how it does in terms of performance.