NZXT B650E

NZXT has nailed the design here, with the N7 still being one of the best-looking motherboard series on the market today. Sure, style is subjective, but when it comes to a clean aesthetic, it’s very much on point. The design also closely matches the designs NZXT use on their current range of coolers, cases, monitors and other peripherals, so NZXT fans can get a unified design throughout their entire range of products. The performance was pretty excellent too, and while the memory performance has room for improvement, this didn’t seem to impact the overall CPU performance at all, with some of the fastest rendering times and synthetic benchmarks we’ve had yet, and while gaming performance wasn’t the fastest, it was competitive with similarly priced solutions, and it makes this a great motherboard for gamers and content creators alike, while also holding up well for daily system tasks. Connectivity is very good too, with both WiFi 6E and 2.5 GbE LAN giving you all the performance you need for gigabit or greater fibre connections, and fast home networking options too. There are three M.2 storage slots, including the latest PCIe Gen 5 for ultra-fast storage solutions. There are plenty of USB ports too, with up to six USB 2.0 ports, 4 USB 3.2 Gen 1 posts, and Gen 2×2 Type-C front panel support. There are five audio jacks, optical out, and even a handy BIOS flashback button.