COLORFUL iGame Z790D5 FLOW Motherboard Review

Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

COLORFUL recently added to its Z790 motherboard lineup by outing a new Z790D5 FLOW and Z790D5 Ultra alongside other vendors that have also released refreshed Z790 options. These new offerings from COLORFUL add motherboards with a white colorway to the market, perfect for consumers creating white themed PC builds. That said, COLORFUL has taken a different approach with these new offerings, leaving us with questions.

Specifications for this motherboard lineup are similar to the CVN Z790D5 we reviewed last year. This leaves us with an LGA1700 socket, giving us complete support for 12th,13th, and 14th Gen Intel CPUs, and behind that, we have an 18+1+1 power design, which should be plenty for mild overclocking. Memory support includes four slots, all pinned for DDR5. COLORFUL says peak speed should rest at 7800MHz with an overclock, while the board also supports the JEDEC standard 4800MHz.

Expansion includes two x16 PCIe slots alongside one x4 and one x1. The top slot offers Gen5 connectivity at x16 for modern GPUs, while the other full-length slot operates at PCIe Gen4 x4. Two additional slots are available, too, one at x4 Gen4 and one at x1 Gen3. Storage connectivity includes four m.2 slots, all supporting Gen4 x4, with the top slot pulling lanes from the CPU. Legacy connectivity is offered with six SATA ports.

Connectivity includes six USB 3.2 ports, the breakdown giving us three Gen2 ports and a single Gen1, including a single Gen2x2 on the rear I/O. Additional connectivity includes 2.5Gbe from Realtek, WiFi6e, and HDMI and DP available on the rear panel.

Pricing

Pricing of the COLORFUL iGame Z790D5 FLOW comes in at $379.99.

Intel Core i7-14700K Gaming Desktop Processor

	Today	Yesterday	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$399.99	$399.99	$399.99	$399.99	Buy
	$399.99	$399.99	$399.99	$399.99	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 4/27/2024 at 1:32 am CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Packaging, Accessories, and Overview

Packaging and Accessories

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The iGame Z790D5 arrived in retail packaging. Packaging offers an image of the board offset right with support chipset and CPU along the bottom.

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We have features on the back across the top, with a diagram and specs to the right.

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The scope of delivery includes a Wi-Fi antenna, SATA cables, and reading materials.

Motherboard Overview

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The iGame is an ATX offering, white PCB with uniquely designed cooling for the VRM around the CPU. All m.2 slots are covered with a large board heatsink that too cools the chipset.

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On the back of the board, we have nothing of interest.

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The rear I/O includes four USB 2.0 at the top, followed by DP and HDMI outputs. We then move into the stash of USB 3.2 ports; blue ports are 5GBps, while Red ports are 10GBps. Further towards the bottom, we have 2.5Gbe next to the single 20GBps USB-C and Wi-Fi antenna connections.

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The board layout includes RGB connections along the bottom next to USB 2.0 headers and fan headers. There is a debug readout here as well.

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Running up the right side, we have more fan headers, six SATA ports, and a single USB 3.2 internal header at the top.

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Further up the right side, we run into the 24-pin connection.

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At the top of the board, we have dual 8-pin CPU power and a single fan header.

UEFI, Software and Test System

UEFI

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The BIOS for the COLORFUL Z790 is unique as well. The main screen offers system information and the ability to enable XMP, change boot priority, and manage connected fans.

The advanced menu gets more into the ACPI, CPU, and storage device configuration. A hardware monitor will also give voltages and temperatures, and the OC menu item allows you to tune the CPU and memory.

Intel Motherboard Test System

• CPU: Intel Core i7 14700K - Buy from Amazon
• GPU: AMD Radeon 7900 XTX - Buy from Amazon
• RAM: Patriot Viper Master 5 7600MHz CL36 - Buy from Amazon
• Cooler: EKWB Nucleus 240 - Buy from Amazon
• OS Storage: Crucial T700 2TB - Buy from Amazon
• Power Supply: Corsair HX1500i - Buy from Amazon
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro - Buy from Amazon

Cinebench R23 and AIDA64

Cinebench 2024

Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that has been heavily relied upon by both Intel and AMD to highlight their newest platforms during unveils. The benchmark has two tests: a single-core workload utilizing one thread or 1T. There is also a multi-threaded test that uses all threads or nT of a tested CPU.

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The iGame landed at 129 single-core and 1988 multi-core to kick off our testing.

CrossMark

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Crossmark landed at 2565 overall for the COLORFUL board.

AIDA64 Memory

AIDA was recently updated to version 6.6, which improved performance in both AES and SHA3 workloads for Alder Lake CPUs. You will notice this performance jump in the charts below compared to earlier Intel Z690 reviews.

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In AES, we picked up 263K with the iGame Z790, matching the rest of the board in our charts.

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SHA3 came in at 7818, only a few points behind our best boards.

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Memory bandwidth is tested at DDR5 7600MHz, the COLORFUL giving us 111K in read, 98K in write, and 101K in copy.

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Memory latency landed at 67.4ns for the iGame board - the highest we have seen so far with DDR5 7600MHz.

UL Procyon and 3DMark

UL Procyon Suite

The UL Procyon Office Productivity Benchmark uses Microsoft Office apps to measure PC performance for office productivity work.

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UL Procyon Office finished up at 9751 overall.

3DMark

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CPU Profile for one and two threads landed at 1191 and 2375, respectively.

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Looking at four, eight, and sixteen threads, the COLORFUL gave us 4655, 8802, and 12024 to wrap up the workload.

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Time Spy finished at 28273 overall, with the CPU picking up 23635, which was quite a bit lower than the rest of our boards.

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Speed Way, again, was just a touch lower than normal. The COLORFUL board landed a score of 6038.

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Gaming with the COLORFUL Z790D5 FLOW nearly matched the performance of our previous motherboards. Peak performance came at 1080p Ultra with 193 FPS. At 1440p and 4K, we landed 135 FPS and 75 FPS, respectively.

Storage Benchmarks and Final Thoughts

3DMark Storage Benchmarks

UL's newest 3DMark SSD Gaming Test is the most comprehensive SSD gaming test ever devised. It is superior to testing against games themselves because, as a trace, it is much more consistent than variations that will occur between runs on the actual game itself. This test is the same as running the real game without the inconsistencies inherent in application testing.

In short, this is the world's best way to test an SSD's gaming prowess and accurately compare it against competing SSDs. The 3DMark SSD Gaming Test measures and scores the following:

• Loading Battlefield V from launch to the main menu.
• Loading Call of Duty Black Ops 4 from launch to the main menu.
• Loading Overwatch from launch to the main menu.
• Recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60 FPS with OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) while playing Overwatch.
• Installing The Outer Worlds from the Epic Games Launcher.
• Saving game progress in The Outer Worlds.
• Copying the Steam folder for Counter-Strike Global Offensive from an external SSD to the system drive.

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Storage for the COLORFUL was a bit lower than expected with our T700. Bandwidth wrapped up with a score of 897 MB/s.

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Testing the motherboard's M.2 cooling solution with our T700, the COLORFUL wasn't as good as some premium motherboard offerings but held our drive under 50c.

Final Thoughts

The iGame Z790D5 FLOW is a rather interesting offering from COLORFUL that, while giving another option for customers wanting to do the themed builds, was launched alongside other vendor's Intel Z790 refresh options. That alone puts this board in the middle of outer space with its features and perhaps even more on its price.

The COLORFUL Z790D5 FLOW offers basic connectivity with a decent amount of USB 3.2, including Gen1 and Gen2. They even tossed in a single USB 3.2 Gen2x2 and coupled that with good Wi-Fi with a 6e chipset from Intel and 2.5Gbe LAN for those wanting a bit more throughput. Conversely, Z790 refresh boards launching simultaneously and now show holes in the iGame offering. First is Wi-Fi 7, with all current platforms launching with it included, and second and perhaps more important is Gen5 NVME support, which was nearly a standard on all Z790 boards, even before the refresh.

Perhaps an even worse situation for the iGame Z790D5 FLOW is its pricing, although it is not bad at $379. Vendors launching refresh Z790 offerings have upped the features and performance expected at the $400 price point. This leaves the iGame Z790 out in the cold, as apart from its colorway, it is a rather basic motherboard when competing vendors have all of the bells and whistles.