Firmware
To give you a sense of the Firmware, we’ve gathered screenshots showing most of the BIOS screens.
NZXT worked with ASRock to help develop this board, and it shows with the overall setup of the BIOS. It looks the same except it uses black and purple, NZXT’s colors. Across the top are several headers, including Main, Overclocking, Advanced, Tool, PC Monitoring, and more. Editable fields are on the left, while descriptions of each selection are on the right.
The BIOS is black, white and purple, matching NZXT’s brand colors while also being easy to read. Most options are found just under the sub-heading(s), and you do not have to dig down to find commonly used features. That said, CPU, DRAM, and Voltage have their own sections. We didn’t have any issues.
Software
On the software side, NZXT uses an all-in-one utility named CAM. The CAM utility controls RGB lighting, overclocking, power, audio, fan speed and more. On the left side of the software are menus/sections, while the right side displays information and is where adjustments happen. Overall, the software worked well in our limited use during testing.
Test System
As of March 2021 we’ve updated our test system to Windows 10 64-bit OS (20H2) with all threat mitigations applied. On the hardware front, we’ve switched to all PCIe 4.0 components. We upgraded our video card to an Asus RTX 3070 TUF Gaming and the storage device to a 2TB Phison PS5-18-E18 M.2. Along with the hardware changes, we’ve also updated the games to F1 2020 and Far Cry: New Dawn. We use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public unless otherwise noted (typically during new platform launches). The hardware used is as follows:
| CPU | Intel i9-11900K |
| RAM | GSkill Trident Z Neo 2x8GB DDR4 3600 (F4-3600C16Q-32GTZN) |
| Row 2 - Cell 0 | GSkill Trident Z Royale 2x8GB DDR4 4000 (F4-4000C18Q-32GTRS) |
| GPU | Asus TUF Gaming RTX 3070 |
| CPU Cooler | Corsair H150i |
| PSU | Corsair AX1200i |
| Operating System | Windows 10 64-bit 20H2 |
| Graphics Driver | NVIDIA Driver 461.40 |
| Sound | Integrated HD audio |
| Network | Integrated Networking (GbE or 2.5 GbE) |
Benchmark Settings
| Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings | Row 0 - Cell 1 |
| PCMark 10 | Version 2.1.2508 64 |
| Row 2 - Cell 0 | Essentials, Productivity, Digital Content Creation, MS Office |
| 3DMark | Version 2.17.7137 64 |
| Row 4 - Cell 0 | Firestrike Extreme and Time Spy Default Presets |
| Cinebench R20 | Version RBBENCHMARK271150 |
| Row 6 - Cell 0 | Open GL Benchmark - Single and Multi-threaded |
| Application Tests and Settings | Row 7 - Cell 1 |
| LAME MP3 | Version SSE2_2019 |
| Row 9 - Cell 0 | Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s) |
| HandBrake CLI | Version: 1.2.2 |
| Row 11 - Cell 0 | Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19GB 4K mkv to x264 (light AVX) and x265 (heavy AVX) |
| Corona 1.4 | Version 1.4 |
| Row 13 - Cell 0 | Custom benchmark |
| 7-Zip | Version 19.00 |
| Row 15 - Cell 0 | Integrated benchmark |
| Game Tests and Settings | Row 16 - Cell 1 |
| F1 2020 | Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080, TAA, 16xAF (Australia, Clear, Dry) |
| Far Cry: New Dawn | Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080 |
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