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 ESTVisual Inspection
The ASRock X570S PG Riptide uses a more neutral color scheme with black and silver throughout, including the rear panel cover, the M.2 heatsink, and the chipset heatsink. Built into the passively cooled chipset heatsink is an illuminated PG (Phantom Gaming) logo, which can be customized via the ASRock Polychrome RGB software. Users looking to add extra RGB can do so via two addressable RGB and two regular RGB headers.
For cooling, ASRock includes seven 4-pin headers in total, with one designated as a CPU fan, one for an optional CPU fan and water pump, and five for chassis fans and water pumps. Other notable headers include a 5-pin Thunderbolt AIC card header, a front panel USB 3.2 G2 Type-C header, two USB 2.0 headers (four ports), and two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A headers (four ports).
Dominating the lower section of the board is plenty of PCIe real estate for a budget board. This includes three full-length PCIe 4.0 slots that can operate at x16/x4/x2, with three smaller PCIe 4.0 x1 slots. For storage, ASRock has one PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot, one PCIe 4.0 x4 with SATA support, and six SATA ports with support for AMD RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. The top-mounted PCIe 4.0 x4 slot includes an M.2 heatsink, while the second slot does not. ASRock also has its patent-pending graphics cardholder, which helps reduce sag from heavy graphics cards.
In the top right-hand corner of the board are four memory slots with support for up to 128 GB. In terms of speed, the PG Riptide supports memory with speeds of up to DDR4-5000 out of the box when used with a Ryzen 5000 series processor.
Looking at the power delivery on the X570S PG Riptide, ASRock is advertising a 10-phase design. Dissecting it, the power delivery is controlled by a UPI UP9595S PWM controller operating in a 4+2 configuration. ASRock includes eight Vishay SIC654 50 A power stages with dual UPI UP1911R smart PWM doublers for the CPU section, making it a doubled 4-phase design from a technical standpoint. On the SoC section, ASRock is using two independently operated Vishay SiC654 50 A power stages. It's not as over-engineered as some power deliveries, but for the price point, it's more than enough to operate Ryzen 5000 without issues.
ASRock is using a simple power delivery heatsink which doubles up as the board's rear panel cover. The design is more about catching passive airflow over high levels of mass, which means it should handle an overclocked processor as this is the only section of the VRM the heatsink covers. The SoC section of the power delivery is solely reliant on passive airflow directly over the bare power stages.
Focusing on the audio section of the board's components, ASRock uses a Realtek ALC897 HD audio codec, which is aging, yet still entirely acceptable for an entry-level model today. Assisting the HD audio codec are four Japanese gold Nichicon audio capacitors, with a front panel header available for users to use. There is also a small line of separation between the audio PCB and the rest of the board.
The rear panel of the ASRock X570S PG Riptide is 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. Also present is a PS/2 combo port for legacy peripherals, five 3.5 mm audio jacks, and S/PDIF optical output powered by a Realtek ALC897 HD audio codec, as well as a single HDMI 2.1 video output for users looking to utilize AMD's Ryzen APUs. ASRock includes a blanking plate for the installation of an M.2 Key E Wi-Fi adapter, while a small BIOS Flashback button finishes off a modest rear panel.
What's in The Box
The main bulk of the accessories within the ASRock X570S PG Riptide box include a pair of SATA cables, ASRock's graphics card holder, three M.2 screws, and one M.2 standoff. There is also a quick installation guide, a software and drivers installation disc, and a rear I/O shield.
- Quick installation guide
- Software/Driver installation disc
- 2 x SATA cables
- 3 x M.2 installation screws
- 1 x M.2 standoff
- ASRock Graphics Card Holder
- 2 x Velcro cable ties
- Rear I/O shield
- ASRock case badge
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meacupla - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
You are either clueless or a total moron, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt of being the former.The CPU socket, RAM slots, m.2 slots, and pci-e slots do not add much to the BoM on mobos
In fact, you can buy Intel LGA 115x and 2011 sockets off of Ali express for pennies.
Soldering everything to the mobo adds to the complexity, which means, it will, in fact, be more costly to manufacture.
Not only that, instead of having a single SKU for the mobo, you are now adding more SKUs for different configurations. This means you need more assembly lines building each of the SKUs, and are further increasing cost to manufacture.
The only reason why apple is capable of soldering everything onto the board, is because
1. They have a very small niche market, which is around 7.4% of the worldwide PC market share.
2. Their very small niche market doesn't seem to care how their PC can't be upgraded or repaired.
3. Their very small niche market doesn't seem to care how expensive Macs cost.
Also, how the hell did you arrive at the conclusion, "Apple is cheaper, because they solder everything to the mobo"?
Wrs - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
Sockets always add to product cost, but then so do multiple SKUs, in terms of inventory management. The added costs may be minimal when done well, but technically I don't see how soldering a chip directly to board can be higher BOM than soldering the socket and then inserting the same chip later. You are aware that sockets have to be soldered to board, right? :)And Apple ain't small. 7.4% share is still 20 million units each year, plus they share techniques & components with the miniature boards in another 150-200 million phones. Assembly line logistics & just-in-time manufacturing are kind of Apple's superpowers. Swapping one component for another of the same size on the same assembly line ought to be trivial.
meacupla - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
Yeah, and then, when you have to do this exact same, multiple SKU thing for the Asrock X570 lineup, which consists of...X570 AQUA
X570 Creator
X570 Taichi Razer Edition
X570 Taichi
X570 Extreme4 Wifi ax
X570 Extreme4
X570 Pro4
X570M Pro4
X570 Steel Legend Wifi ax
X570 Steel Legend
X570 PG Velocita
X570S PG Riptide
X570 Phantom Gaming X
X570 Phantom Gaming 4 Wifi ax
X570 Phantom Gaming 4
X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3
And combine most of those mobos with the Ryzen 5000 series lineup, which consists of...
Ryzen 9 5950X
Ryzen 9 5900X
Ryzen 7 5800X
Ryzen 5 5600X
Ryzen 7 5700G
Ryzen 5 5600G
Ryzen 3 5300G
Oh, and we can't forget RAM and SSDs, since those too will be soldered on in various configurations.
So, for RAM we will do 8/16/32/64
And for SSD, we will do 128/256/512/1TB/2TB
16 x 7 x 4 x 5 = 2240 possible SKUs
And this will be PURELY from Asrock's lineup. We haven't even done Asus, Gigabyte or MSI yet.
It's pretty easy to see there is going to be a bit of an issue.
Qasar - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
imagine this, but change it for intel. 2240 for amd ? i dont even want to consider this for intel. at the store i go to, there are 23 intel cpus ! just swapping cpus, while leaving everything else the same is 7,360 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!yea this would NOT work at all.
Wrs - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
All that said I agree with your implied stance that we should keep major sockets on the desktop - RAM, CPU, GPU, storage - for the plain fact that the factories to solder/desolder the stuff are so far away, and we need a local ability to customize our stuff and upgrade/fix our components piecemeal.Arbie - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
"You are either clueless or a total moron"Do you pay extra, meaculpa, for being gratuitously insulting? Or maybe you think flame wars improve a forum, and would like to be treated that way yourself.
meacupla - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
I aim to please.TheinsanegamerN - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
Well someone has to tell idiots they are idiots, otherwise they'll try to fly off of the empire state building thinking they've invented flight.Oxford Guy - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
1. Except for the employees (including people being paid to astroturf and such by their firms), all people who post here can automatically be characterized as not being geniuses. Geniuses typically have better things to do with their time and are able to recognize that.2. Among the group of less intelligent folk who do post here 'altruistically', each person has a different knowledge base and a different age. Expecting everyone to know everything is foolish. Some overreach in their posts but lack the knowledge to know that. That includes people who preen and pose whilst mocking others' efforts. When people make erroneous claims all that's needed is a simple factual correction, not a narcissistic display of bravura.
Bottom line is this: Worry about yourself first. Worry about your factuality first. When correcting others, do it politely — especially when the people making the posts aren't being paid to do it. Correcting in a bullying manner is its own forum error, one deserving of correction.
Culturally, it is clear that Internet discourse is becoming less civil. I have seen forums devolve, even those that don't have mechanisms (like downvoting and post hiding) that encourage the aggression that causes that devolution. I am not a sociologist so I don't know enough to be able to explain (with less guesswork and more facts) the origins of all of this trend but it is one that I can see clearly in many places — even though pockets of rudeness have always been around. Attention spans seem to be shrinking and with that there seems to be a proportionate rise in entitled smirky wrath.
One thing humanity desperately needs is mandatory curriculum in all schools for understanding fallacies — how to avoid using them in discourse in particular. That would go a long way toward restoring some level of efficiency in public Internet-based communication. Even huge corporations use naked crass fallacies in court (as Sony did when trying to attack consumers who opposed the decision to retroactively strip the PS3 of Linux support).
haakon_k - Sunday, October 24, 2021 - link
Post of the month! Nearly post of the year !! Well said, 'Oxford Guy'.