The ASRock X570S PG Riptide Motherboard Review: A Wave of PCIe 4.0 Support on A Budget
by Gavin Bonshor on October 22, 2021 9:00 AM ESTBoard Features
The ASRock X570S PG Riptide is an ATX motherboard designed for everyday users and gamers looking to use AMD's Ryzen 5000 and 3000 series on a budget. Designed around a new passively cooled chipset heatsink, the X570S series typically allows vendors to update controller sets to the latest chips, although the PG Riptide is more about squeezing in as much value as possible.
Some of the board's main features include three full-length PCIe 4.0 slots that are operating at x16/+4/+2, with three smaller PCIe 4.0 x1 slots. For storage, ASRock includes one PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot, one PCIe 4.0 x4/SATA M.2 slot, and six SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. In the top right-hand corner of the board, there are four memory slots with support for DDR4-5000 and a maximum capacity of up to 128 GB.
Touching on cooling support, ASRock includes seven 4-pin fan headers, with one for a CPU fan, one for a water pump or second CPU fan, and five headers designed for chassis fans.
| ASRock X570S PG Riptide ATX Motherboard | |||
| Warranty Period | 3 Years | ||
| Product Page | Link | ||
| Price | $185 | ||
| Size | ATX | ||
| CPU Interface | AM4 | ||
| Chipset | AMD X570 | ||
| Memory Slots (DDR4) | Four DDR4 Supporting 128 GB Dual Channel Up to DDR4-5000 |
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| Video Outputs | 1 x HDMI 2.1 | ||
| Network Connectivity | Killer E3100G 2.5 GbE | ||
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC897 | ||
| PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU) | 1 x PCIe 4.0 x16 | ||
| PCIe Slots for Other (from PCH) | 1 x PCIe 4.0 x4 1 x PCIe 4.0 x2 3 x PCIe 4.0 x1 |
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| Onboard SATA | Six, RAID 0/1/10 (X570) | ||
| Onboard M.2 | 1 x PCIe 4.0 x4 1 x PCIe 4.0 x4/SATA |
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| USB 3.2 (10 Gbps) | 1 x Type-A Rear Panel 1 x Type-C Rear Panel 1 x Type-C Header (1 x port) |
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| USB 3.2 (5 Gbps) | 4 x Type-A Rear Panel 2 x Type-A Header (4 x ports) |
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| USB 2.0 | 2 x Type-A Rear Panel 2 x Type-A Header (4 x ports) |
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| Power Connectors | 1 x 24-pin ATX 1 x 8pin CPU 1 x 4pin CPU |
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| Fan Headers | 1 x CPU (4-pin) 1 x CPU/Water Pump (4-pin) 5 x Chassis (4-pin) |
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| IO Panel | 1 x USB 3.2 G2 Type-A 1 x USB 3.2 G2 Type-C 4 x USB 3.2 G1 Type-A 2 x USB 2.0 Type-A 1 x Network RJ45 2.5 G (Killer) 5 x 3.5mm Audio Jacks (Realtek) 1 x Optical Output (Realtek) 1 x BIOS Flashback Button 1 x HDMI 2.1 Output 1 x PS/2 Combo port |
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In terms of connectivity, the X570S PG Riptide has one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. Networking capability consists of a single Killer E3100G 2.5 GbE controller, while the board's five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output are controlled by a Realtek ALC897 HD audio codec. ASRock does include a BIOS Flashback button on the rear panel, as well as a single HDMI 2.1 video output for users looking to leverage the integrated graphics on Ryzen APUs.
Test Bed
As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard released during the socket’s initial launch and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS. Most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users and industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.
| Test Setup | |||
| Processor | AMD Ryzen 3700X, 65W, $329 8 Cores, 16 Threads, 3.6 GHz (4.4 GHz Turbo) |
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| Motherboard | ASRock X570 PG Riptide (BIOS P1.30) | ||
| Cooling | Cooler Master Masterliquid ML240 240 mm AIO | ||
| Power Supply | Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W Gold PSU | ||
| Memory | 2x8GB G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 16-16-16-36 2T | ||
| Video Card | ASUS GTX 980 STRIX (1178/1279 Boost) | ||
| Hard Drive | Crucial MX300 1TB | ||
| Case | Open Benchtable BC1.1 (Silver) | ||
| Operating System | Windows 10 1909 | ||
Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.
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Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs |
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Crucial Ballistix DDR4 |
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Arbie - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
$185 - which you could spend on a set of aluminum lawn chairs. I am continually astounded that an ultra-high tech assembly like this, with hundreds of parts each microscopically created, comprising millions of transistors, and with multiple PCB layers, countless holes precisely drilled, and the whole thing electrically and electronically designed, all the drawings, BOM, logistics, testing etc, can appear on a shelf here at this price. Or at twice the price. Or three times.Just an observation...
meacupla - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
That's because your aluminum lawn chairs are overpriced, and have significantly better margins. They probably only cost around $20 to make, $30 to ship, and $30 to store in a your local warehouse, until you bought them. That leaves more than a 50% profit margin for the manufacturer.Where as Mobos have significantly less margin. Mobo makers only have around 10% profit per sale of a mobo, and less than 8% on graphics cards, by the time you can buy one locally. This is also the reason why it's so hard to get RMAs on mobos and graphics cards for certain manufacturers.
Arbie - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
So if lawn chairs cost half as much, mobos would be 0.5 x 10^6 more complex per dollar, instead of 1.0 x 10^6. I get it.TheITS - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
It's much more logically explained by economies of scale, not complexity.Arbie - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
I doubt that orders of magnitude more "ASRock X570S PG Riptide" mobos will be sold than say "Walmart Model XYZ" lawnchair sets. There are major economies of scale in the electronic subcomponents, but the lawnchairs have some too.Overall, I can far more easily see how lawnchairs might arrive at such a price than how a mobo can. In fact the latter appears miraculous compared to almost anything within 10x its price.
Wrs - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
Bulk is a primary cost factor for lawn chairs made abroad. It limits how many products you can pack per container for shipment. For a typical product originating from SE Asia, remember each container has to make the sea and land journey round trip. That typically ranges from $25000-40000 for a 40' truckload to the US, or $600-1000 per linear foot. This holiday season there are unusual shipping backlogs and the price has spiked to $2000 or something. Might not be the best year to get lawn chairs. A corollary is that the more compact the chairs fold or stack into, the cheaper they can be sold for.A mobo box being around 2 large books is comparatively easy to pack, but more importantly the tiny size of most of the components makes shipping costs to assembly site almost trivial. With Moore's law shrinking chips so much, one can still pack millions of transistors on a mature node for just pennies.
ballsystemlord - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
Technical correction @Gavin . You didn't mean to write "... and three PCIe 4.0 x4 slots." You intended "... and three PCIe 4.0 x1 slots".geniekid - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
How well does the GPU bracket/holder actually work?Tomatotech - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
You know, I’m reading this mobo review after reading the details of the new M1 Pro / Max SoC, and all I can think of is that this mobo looks so large and outdated.I think it’s time for processors to start being soldered on, for Intel at least, as they change their sockets so often. I’d happily buy a CPU + mobo + decent igpu + ram + a TB or 2 of SSD space onboard. The whole package should cost less than buying the parts separately and work far better.
The cheaper CPUs can come with 8GB soldered on and the better ones with 16/32/64GB RAM options. 1 TB onboard of fast soldered SSD is enough for most people, and there can still be a M2 slot for adding a few more TB.
I’m not sure how to keep the ability to add a beefy GPU, maybe have a single high speed slot, plus the ability to add a daughterboard with a few more slots if needed, connected by a TB4 cable. (TB is basically PCIe over a cable).
Won’t be to everyone’s taste but it would make life easier and cheaper. Technology marches on and HDDs no longer have replaceable platters (drums), or replaceable arms / actuators. Time to take the next step and integrate the CPU and RAM, god knows Intel’s CPUs need a better RAM connection.
isthisavailable - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
How about no?