A New Player in Motherboards: Our NZXT N7-Z37XT Review

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Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
33 Comments Comment from the forums
  • darthbonehead
    How can you make a $300 motherboard look cheap and nasty?

    Don't like the N7 branding either, NZXT should steer clear of that.
    Reply
  • Gregory_3
    Those heat sinks had better be effective. As attractive as it looks, I'm not sure about the wisdom of placing a layer of plastic over the soldered components.
    Reply
  • deepblue08
    Not sure I dig the 1980's refrigerator look
    Reply
  • PureBlackFire
    complete lack of USB 3.1 gen 2/type C connectivity, wifi, blue tooth, competent vrm cooling and close ecosystem lighting and fan control are what somebody considers "moderately" reduced feature set for a $300 motherboard? I'd say it's a sub par first offering from a company new to the motherboard market. at $180 this isn't a bad board, but even at $180 you can get all the relevant features here and USB 3.1 gen 2.
    Reply
  • falifluche
    No point for NZXT to build a MB factory so who is it built by according to you TH ?
    Reply
  • Karadjgne
    So NZXT throws a bone to the Asus Sabertooth. At $200 it'd be an interesting option, but for $300 it's an aesthetics appeal only board.
    Reply
  • AnimeMania
    Making your own Z370 motherboard can't be that big a deal since CyberPowerPC did it as well.
    https://s.cppc.co/spec/getspec_share.aspx?n=MOTHERBOARD&v=CyberpowerPC%20Z370%20SLI%20Xtreme%20ATX%20w%2F%20RGB%2C%20802.11ac%20WiFi%2C%20USB%203.1%2C%202%20PCIe%20x16%2C%204%20PCIe%20x1%2C%206%20SATA3%2C%202%20M.2%20SATA%2FPCIe%20%5BIntel%20Optane%20Ready%5D&x=MB-470-101&f=www

    Maybe you can find one and review it as well, I certainly wouldn't select one without a review.
    Reply
  • delaro
    Added Aesthetics at a premium cost with sub par budget board performance, heat and features. Well now why would anyone waste money on it?
    Reply
  • Crashman
    20575741 said:
    Those heat sinks had better be effective. As attractive as it looks, I'm not sure about the wisdom of placing a layer of plastic over the soldered components.
    It's not plastic, except for those thin strips between the slots. The rest is steel. The manual says to leave the plastic strip off if you put an M.2 drive there...

    20576020 said:
    No point for NZXT to build a MB factory so who is it built by according to you TH ?
    I'm sure if you look long and hard you'll figure something out, it's not like NZXT spilled the beans.

    20576090 said:
    So NZXT throws a bone to the Asus Sabertooth. At $200 it'd be an interesting option, but for $300 it's an aesthetics appeal only board.
    I thought Sabertooth was plastic? Anyway, the whole time I was testing it I kept coming up with "it's a fine board, too bad about the price", so I tried to write that in the nicest way :)

    Reply
  • Karadjgne
    About the only contract mobo builder I can think of that wouldn't have issues with direct brand competition conflicts would be Foxconn, and they definitely have the resources to design and/or manufacture mobo's to vendor specs.
    Reply