Board Software

NZXT CAM worked well and in our short experience here with the NZXT N9 X870E, we didn't have any major issues. The RGB lighting gives decent control over the various headers and ports and also the RGB strip down the I/O shroud. The cooling section is important given it provides the only way of tweaking things using a modern fan curve profile, but it's a shame there's no way to set the VRM fans to actually respond to VRM temperature - only CPU or GPU. Of course, your CPU is likely to be toasty at the same time your VRMs are, but there's usually a latency there and the two don't need to go hand in hand all the time.

As we mentioned earlier, anything above 40 percent speed will likely annoy the noise-sensitive out there and sadly, even the silent mode will see the fans top this when the CPU hits just 45°C - barely breaking a sweat. The best option here might have been to have the fans at zero RPM unless the VRM temperature rises to, say, 60°C, at which point they kick in. As it stands, the cooling is great, but at the cost of noise, thankfully CAM does offer a fix and is easy to use. There's still the issue that some users will not appreciate being forced to use additional software to control elements of their board, rather than simply using the EFI in a set and forget manner.