Top Motherboards

Colourful CVN B760I Frozen Wi-Fi D5 V20 – Assessment 2023


This is a stumper on your subsequent spherical of bar trivia: Identify the highest graphics card firm in China. It is Colourful, a model barely recognized within the U.S. however profitable since 1995 as a number one accomplice with Nvidia, AMD, and Intel within the Asian market. The newest B760 motherboard to achieve our take a look at bench is Colourful’s CVN B760I Frozen D5 V20, accessible for round $249.99 from e-tailers like Amazon and Newegg. This Mini-ITX board gives quite a bit in a compact bundle: ample storage together with two M.2 sockets and 4 SATA ports, energy supply appropriate for flagship-class processors, quick RAM assist as much as DDR5-8000, seven USB ports on the rear I/O, and extra. The Frozen’s white/black/silver aesthetic will not be for everybody, however it appears good and matches in with many construct themes. It is priced on the excessive finish of the price range phase, however it’s a well-rounded resolution within the Mini-ITX market, the place it’s normal to must pay extra to get much less.


Board Design, CPU, and Reminiscence

There is not a lot room for design flexibility with small-form-factor motherboards, however Colourful does a ok job setting itself aside. The CVN B760I Frozen’s semi-gloss, multi-layer PCB has black traces operating vertically by means of an in any other case white base. The facility supply is cooled by a big heatsink that reaches out over the rear I/O. On high is a ribbed look (it is really flat) and “Love what you play” motto, together with extra military-like branding. (CVN is, mockingly, a hull classification for the U.S. Navy.)

(Credit score: Joe Shields)

There’s an M.2 heatsink on the entrance, however it’s the smallest among the many direct competitors. All connectors are black, properly contrasting with the primarily white PCB. RGB lovers should add their very own lighting, however with solely a single 3-pin ARGB header to connect with, there’s restricted flexibility until you daisy-chain lighting kits. That stated, if black is not your factor, the Frozen will look sharp because the centerpiece of your ITX construct.

The motherboard helps Intel’s twelfth, thirteenth, and 14th Era processors, with an 8-phase energy design utilizing seven highly effective 110A SPS MOSFETs devoted to Vcore. The entire 770A accessible is not quite a bit, however it dealt with our Core i9-14900K CPU with out situation throughout testing and gaming. The VRM heatsinks do a stable job of protecting the facility bits in spec, even beneath heavy sustained masses. It is value noting that the facility supply is actively cooled by a tiny fan, which—excellent news—is inaudible over our take a look at system’s followers. Whilst you cannot overclock the processor on this platform (there are exceptions, boards with BCLK mills), you may overclock the RAM.

Reminiscence assist is listed as much as an ultra-fast DDR5-8000+ (OC), above common for this Intel platform. Capability utilizing non-binary kits (your 24GB and 48GB sticks) peaks at 96GB, which needs to be lots for all however the heaviest of energy customers. The 8,000MHz pace assist matches the quickest comparable B760 board and even some Z790 ITX motherboards.

(Credit score: Joe Shields)

If you happen to’re decided to squeeze out one other p.c or two of efficiency by overclocking your reminiscence, you may. Though the Colourful BIOS would not have the premium look of different board companions’ choices, there are many choices to tweak the system together with reminiscence voltages and first, secondary, and tertiary timings. Each our base DDR5-5600 and DDR5-7200 kits labored superb by setting the inner profile (XMP on one equipment, EXPO on the opposite), although our Klevv DDR5-8000 equipment—not listed on the appropriate reminiscence QVL—didn’t need to play good.


Structure and Inner Connectors

Starting our board tour within the higher left nook, we spy the 8-pin EPS for powering the CPU. The VRM heatsinks and the small fan hidden beneath adequately cool the VRMs that energy the processor. The following factor we run into is the lone RGB header, a 3-pin ARGB as talked about earlier. You may management hooked up lighting through iGame software program that gives a number of canned lighting modes, pace, brightness, and colour changes.

Simply above the socket are three 4-pin fan/pump headers, every of which helps PWM and DC-controlled units. Nevertheless, the specs and the guide do not element how a lot every header outputs. We have requested Colourful and are ready to listen to again; till we do, assume these output 1A/12W every and watch out to not overload them. Management over these units is dealt with by means of the BIOS or the iGame software program.

(Credit score: Joe Shields)

Subsequent, we encounter two unreinforced DRAM slots with a locking mechanism on the high. Once more, Colourful specifies assist as much as 96GB (two 48GB sticks) of DDR5-8000. If you happen to want greater than 96GB, you will must discover a board with 4 DRAM slots—i.e., not a Mini-ITX board!

Alongside the correct edge is a 24-pin ATX connector to energy the board, together with front-panel USB 2.0 and three.2 Gen 1 headers, 4 vertically mounted SATA 3 (6Gbps) ports, a front-panel USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) port, and at last the front-panel header. Lacking are the standard debug LEDs that enable you discover an issue through the POST course of. Alongside the underside fringe of the board is a totally uncovered Realtek ALC897 audio codec, together with a few audio capacitors and front-panel header. This can be a primary 5.1-channel codec, however most customers ought to discover it acceptable.


Growth, Storage, and Rear I/O

This evaluation’s paragraph about enlargement slots will probably be temporary: there’s only one, a full-length PCI Categorical 5.0 x16 slot that connects on to the processor. As with different ITX boards on this class, the slot would not share lanes or bifurcate with anything as is widespread on motherboards with extra slots, sockets, and ports.

Simply above the PCIe slot beneath a small heatsink is the primary of two M.2 sockets. The socket on the entrance of the board connects by means of the CPU, supporting as much as 80mm units at as much as PCIe 4.0 x4 (64Gbps) speeds; the second socket on the again of the board connects by means of the chipset and helps as much as 80mm PCIe modules. 4 vertically mounted SATA ports (able to RAID modes 0, 1, 5, and 10) spherical out the storage, however if you wish to RAID the M.2 sockets, you are out of luck.

(Credit score: Joe Shields)

The rear I/O contains a preinstalled silver plate with black port labels, some vents to assist warmed air from the VRM escape, and CVN branding with an image of a naval vessel in yellow. There is not a lot occurring again right here, with solely seven USB ports—4 USB 2.0 (480Mbps) ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbps) Kind-A ports, and one USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbps) Kind-C port. Most customers will probably be okay with this array, however bear in mind that the quickest port is the front-panel 10Gbps USB-C connector. Different boards on this class have not less than a few 10Gbps ports on the rear I/O.

Video output utilizing the processor’s built-in graphics is managed by means of DisplayPort and HDMI ports, whereas the audio stack consists of three analog ports (mic in, line in/out). A Realtek 2.5Gbps Ethernet port and Wi-Fi 6 antenna connections spherical out the rear panel, with a handy clear-CMOS button at far left.


A Transient Have a look at the UEFI BIOS and Utilities

The Colourful BIOS has a novel look in comparison with that of different motherboards we have reviewed. Its black-on-red design with white textual content is straightforward to learn, however would not have the premium look of Asus, MSI, ASRock, and Gigabyte firmware. That minor quibble apart, the BIOS’s Simple Mode works like its rivals’, sharing high-level system information together with temperature (CPU and motherboard) and voltages, RAM and storage standing, and fan speeds. There’s even an EZ OC part for one-touch efficiency will increase or power financial savings, enabling XMP profiles, or establishing RAID for storage.

(Credit score: Colourful)

The superior mode has just a few headings throughout the highest (OC, Superior, BIOS Settings, Boot, Exit) in bins for straightforward choice. On the left is system info together with CPU, reminiscence, and voltages, with selectable subsections within the center and the varied choices on the correct. It is a user-friendly structure, even when it appears easier than most.

The OC part proven under shows frequency, reminiscence, and voltage settings with detailed choices at proper. It gives loads of selections for overclocking the reminiscence, however utilizing a locked chipset, overclocking is restricted to spice up clocks. The B760I Frozen has all of the reminiscence tweaking choices you should get essentially the most from no matter equipment you utilize.

(Credit score: Colourful)

The Superior part is the place to seek out configuration settings for the chipset and energy. This contains the standard menu of settings to regulate CPU, SATA, USB, Tremendous I/O, NVMe, CSM, and extra, together with a {hardware} monitor part the place you may configure fan speeds.

(Credit score: Colourful)

The final BIOS display screen we captured is for flashing and saving the BIOS; pictured is the firmware discovering our USB stick and the newest BIOS file from Colourful’s motherboard webpage. The Boot part (not proven) is self-explanatory, providing choices for boot order and forcing in addition from a selected drive. The Exit choice holds and retrieves saved BIOS profiles.

(Credit score: Colourful)

Whereas the Colourful BIOS might not win any fashion awards and is extra operate over type, it is easy to navigate and has all of the choices you should management and tweak your PC.

As for board-specific Home windows software program, Colourful’s iGame app covers monitoring, RGB lighting management, system tweaking, and extra. It begins as an info hub within the My Gadget part, displaying linked {hardware}, temperatures, and standing in opposition to a black background with crimson highlights. It is paying homage to the BIOS theme however rather more refined.

(Credit score: Colourful)

Within the {Hardware} part, the primary choice (click on on the chassis icon) controls the RGB lighting. The iGame software program gives a number of modes together with frequency, brightness, and colour management for every lighting scheme. The app managed our RGB reminiscence and graphics card with none bother.

(Credit score: Colourful)

Choosing the graphics card or motherboard icons permits you to tweak these units. For the GPU, you may regulate core and reminiscence clocks, voltage, energy limits, and temperature thresholds—the whole lot you want. Additionally listed here are voltage and multiplier choices for the CPU, amongst different gadgets, however since this board makes use of a B760 chipset, overclocking previous the increase core multiplier is not doable.

(Credit score: Colourful)

The monitoring part is extra of a configuration menu for an onscreen show. The concise model shows frames per second, CPU, and related graphics info. It is a good value-add in the event you’re into monitoring your system, one thing often offered by third-party software program comparable to MSI Afterburner.

(Credit score: Colourful)

General, we like what the iGame software program gives. It appears good and is purposeful and straightforward to make use of with out being bloated or intrusive.


Verdict: A Little Brief on USB, However In any other case a Viable Choice

Although the motherboard panorama gives loads of enticing choices from the “massive 4” (Asus, ASRock, Gigabyte, and MSI), it is at all times good to see one other hat within the ring, particularly when it is a worthwhile product. The Colourful CVN B760I Frozen Wi-Fi D5 V20 is one, albeit a barely expensive one at $249.99. (A DDR4 model is $20 much less.) You get native 14th Gen assist, two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 sockets and 4 SATA ports, Wi-Fi 6 and a pair of.5Gbps networking, succesful energy supply, and good general efficiency with a novel tri-tone look that blends in with most builds.

(Credit score: Joe Shields)

Competitors amongst B760 Mini-ITX boards is fierce, nevertheless. Asus’ ROG Strix B760-I Gaming Wi-Fi ($198.99) gives a premium look and the perfect audio resolution of the group, whereas the MSI MPG V760I Edge Wi-Fi ($217.99) supplies the same contrasting look and a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20Gbps) Kind-C port (as do the opposite options right here). Gigabyte’s B760I Aorus Professional ($209.99) provides off premium vibes and is the one choice with built-in RGBs. (ASRock sells a B760 Mini-ITX board, however its value level is far decrease and its options—one M.2 socket and 1Gbps Ethernet—do not examine properly.)

Nonetheless, in the event you can reside with solely seven rear USB ports and with out a 20Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 port, Colourful is a model value remembering, though the CVN B760I Frozen would look higher at a value nearer to $200.



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