NZXT has announced its N7 Z790 ATX motherboard, with an LGA 1700 socket ready for 12th and 13th generation (opens in new tab) Intel CPUs. Visually clean on the outside and available in both black and white, the N7 Z790 contains plenty of RGB connectors for you to set up the light show of your choice.
Based on the Z790 chipset ready for some of the best CPUs for gaming (opens in new tab) , the N7 Z790 has plenty of advanced features, including four DDR5 (opens in new tab) slots for up to 128GB of RAM and the Intel XMP 3.0 settings, plus rated RAM speeds of up to 6,000 MHz. Alongside the memory slots sits one PCIe 5.0 x16 slot for a GPU or an SSD boot drive, plus two PCIe 4.0 x16 slots and two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots.
M.2 slots come in the form of three PCIe 4.0 units supporting x4 mode (one of which can also talk to a SATA M.2 drive ), plus an extra Key E socket for a Type 2230 Wi-Fi module and Intel CNVio devices, though the board itself supports dual-band Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. There are also six SATA 6Gb/s ports for all your hard drive needs.
Complementing the fast wireless is a 2.5G Ethernet port — it and a pair of wireless antennas sit on the backplate of the board. Alongside them are two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, three USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, and one USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C port. There are also two USB 2.0 ports, for your mouse and keyboard, and one HDMI port for use with integrated graphics. Audio comes in the form of an eight-channel solution, with five analog audio jacks and a SPDIF output.
Internal connectivity builds on what you can see on the backplate, with extra USB 2.0 and 3.2 headers, AIO pump and Sys Fan connectors, four NZXT RGB LED connectors, and two 5V ARGB LED connectors. You also get a 16+1+2 DrMOS power phase design with a 2oz copper PCB — which should be helpful for overclocking your i9-13900K — plus presets, fan profiles and custom modes via the NZXT CAM software.
MSRP for the NZXT N7 Z790 board is $299.99, which certainly puts it above the NZXT N5 Z690 — which also had an extra M.2 socket. The N7 Z790 beats the N5 Z690 with DDR5 RAM slots and additional shielding over its PCIe interfaces, but otherwise the boards look very similar. An N5 Z790 board has yet to be announced.