Now here's something a little different. Most current generation motherboards default to a mostly black theme with RGB brands and logos sprinkled throughout. White-themed motherboards do exist, but they are few and far between. However, NZXT's board stands out, especially in its stark white guise.

NZXT may not have the major motherboard brand recognition in the game, but it has released boards that are compatible with the past few Intel generations. However, the N7 B550 is the company's first AMD motherboard.

Nor is it a cheap knockoff. It is the most feature-rich of the B550 motherboards and, in fact, outperforms many X570 boards. However, you should consider this board over one of the big four boards.

ASRock is clearly a partner manufacturer of the N7 B550, and when you first enter the BIOS, you will see the ASRock BIOS. Not that there is anything wrong with that; ASRock's AM4 BIOS does not include every option under the sun, but the N7 B550 is easy to navigate; NZXT's first motherboard came with a BIOS that barely worked, and this segment of PC hardware NZXT's first motherboards came with a mostly nonfunctional BIOS, highlighting the company's naivete towards this segment of PC hardware.

Users of NZXT coolers and cases will be familiar with the company's CAM software, for better or worse. In my opinion, this is one of the better, more fully featured system control suites, with RGB, fan/AIO control, and even overclocking control.

At first glance, you will notice the shroud covering most of the board. What we have on hand is the white version; there are still many black highlights throughout the board, including the PCB itself, sockets, slots, and rear I/O shroud. Perhaps NZXT should have made it all-white, as they did with its siblings in all-black.

Also note that there is no RGB lighting on the board, despite the on-board RGB and ARGB headers.

A white shroud might be a good opportunity for modders. It is like a blank canvas on which to come up with any design. This gives the board a unique look, but not without trade-offs. The magnetically attached M.2 slot covers have no M.2 cooling capability. Also, the bottom slot only works with PCIe 3.0 x2, so if you install an SSD in this slot, you will lose the performance of two of the six SATA ports. This implementation is the most obvious weakness of this board.

Aside from the poor M.2 implementation, the board is otherwise packed with features.

A tour of the board reveals seven fan headers, a Type-C USB case header, power and reset buttons, and two USB 3.1 Gen 1 headers. These are located adjacent to the six SATA ports. With careful cable management, this board will happily function at the heart of the cleanest gaming PC build.

The VRM system is equally high-performance for a board of this price: a 12+2 phase solution with a 50A choke provides enough power for every conceivable overclock, even the 5950X. our concerns about the VRM cooling were mitigated upon closer inspection. The heatsink under the white shroud is really big and has a lot of fin surface area; a quick test on the 5800X showed a peak VRM temperature of 50°C with PBO enabled. This is a good result.

The rear I/O is loaded with ports, one of the best examples seen on a B550 board: there is a Wi-Fi antenna, BIOS flashback (can be flashed without CPU), and a CMOS clear button. There is also an HDMI port for the new 5000G series APUs; there is a standard set of audio ports, including S/PDIF driven by the ALC1220 codec. Wired networking is provided by a 2.5G Realtek RTL8125G controller.

Finally, there is a first-rate USB complement: 10 USB ports, including Type-A and C USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, six Gen 1 ports, and two 2.0 ports. A 3. A 2 Gen 2x2 port would be nice, but that kind of thing somehow justifies a $500+ board; with 10 ports, you can connect a charger, printer, mouse, keyboard, USB head massager, etc. all at the same time.

System Performance

Gaming Performance

The N7 B550 performed as expected and perhaps a bit better. Under single-threaded loads, the board performed on the higher end of the AM4 boards tested. It was not inferior under heavy multi-threaded loads, in fact, it was able to beat the high-end Asrock B550 Taichi Razer Edition. Under gaming loads, the GPU is overloaded and there is an error level difference.

Overall, the NZXT shows that it is a mature product when it comes to actual PC performance. Any concerns that the board might lack a bit of refinement were quickly dispelled.

Quick and dirty overclocking tests were easily handled by the N7 B550, with 2x 16GB sticks running DDR4-3600 1:1 and PBO presenting zero challenge. However, overclocking with 2x 8GB kits should be able to push to 1,900MHz Infinity Fabric or better, as we did previously with this CPU sample. Sadly, however, stability could not be achieved. Unfortunately, stability was not achieved; 1:1 DDR4-3600 remains AMD's sweet spot, and the N7 B550 will not be an impediment to that.

At the time of writing, the NZXT N7 B550 is available from certain U.S. distributors for $249.99, higher than the $230 MSRP. This is one of the more expensive B550 boards. We usually suggest that aesthetics are less important when evaluating motherboards, within reason; the NZXT N7 B550, especially the white version, is a board you might want to put in your cart primarily for its appearance.

That's not a bad thing, as long as it works well in other areas; with or without RGB lighting, a white build with the right components and case is really clean. I do wish it had all been white, though.

NZXT's N7 B550 is one of the few B550 boards with solid performance, Wi-Fi 6E, and a nice USB complement.

The N7 B550 was a successful first AMD entry for the company, but it has some drawbacks that we hope will be addressed: poor M.2 implementation, no drive cooling, and only two slots, the second slot being slow and shared between SATA ports. It is not a deal-breaker, but if you want to install many drives, you will need to look elsewhere. However, with the right combination of components, this can be quite an attractive board. It has fast Wi-Fi, a powerful feature set, and fits nicely into a white build.