Board Layout

The ASRock B550 PG Riptide has the all too familiar aesthetic that is a standard look for 2021. It consists of a black PCB matched with black heatsinks and silver accents. Once the board is powered on, the logo in the bottom of the chipset heatsink has RGB LEDs that can be adjusted to your liking, or turned off completely.


The space surrounding the CPU socket is adequate for most air coolers. The VRM heatsink is fairly tall and will get in the way of any coolers reaching into this area.


There are two M.2 sockets on the ASRock B550 PG Riptide; one above the first PCIe x16 slot that supports PCIe 4.0 connectivity directly from the CPU and another below the second PCIe x16 slot, which runs through the B550 chipset with a Gen 3.0 interface instead. Only the top M.2 socket features a full-coverage heatsink.


The ASRock B550 PG Riptide offers three PCI Express x16 slots, with the top slot steel-reinforced and PCIe 4.0 compatible. The other two are using the Gen3 interface instead. While both are physically x16 slots, neither is wired as such. The middle PCIe slot is 4x and the bottom slot 1x Gen 3.0. Both are connected to the B550 chipset.

The board has a total of six SATA 6 Gb/s ports on the side, angled 90 degrees from the board. As often is the case, not all SATA ports will be functional if the second M.2 socket is used. Ports five and six will be disabled due to bandwidth allocations. This is common to a lot of motherboards, and if not mentioned in the specifications on the product page, the information can be found in the product manual.


Above the audio section is the M.2 socket (Key E) for Wi-Fi. It supports type 2230 WiFi/BT PCIe WiFi modules. The manual states no additional PCIe slots will be disabled when this M.2 socket is in use.


One of ASRock's selling points of the PG Riptide is this GPU support bracket. The bracket uses two of the same mounting holes as the motherboard. Instead of using the supplied screws with the case, ASRock has included two sets of screws for different types of threads depending on your standoffs. I don't think using thread locker glue on the screws was a smart choice. It certainly could come out on its own, which seems intentional, but will take the motherboard case standoffs with it if you ever decide to remove the motherboard.


Networking on the ASRock B550 PG Riptide is handled by a Killer E3001G 2.5 Gb/s controller. This NIC requires specific drivers to be installed to function.


The I/O section is filled with a number of USB ports, which is nice to see as practically everything PC related is USB oriented. However, only the light blue ports in the center can be considered high-speed as these are 10 Gb/s. The blue USB ports only provide 5 Gb/s of bandwidth.

Also included is the PS/2 port that could be handy for backwards compatibility, as well as USB 2.0 for any OS that does not support USB 3.0. Next to the legacy USB 2.0 ports is an HDMI output. No information is provided on the HDMI revision. With 4K at 60 Hz listed as supported, it has to be HDMI 2.0, as the bandwidth would otherwise be too low.

• 1x Antenna bracket (empty)
• 1x PS/2 mouse/keyboard port
• 1x HDMI port
• 1x Optical SPDIF Out port
• 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A Port (10 Gb/s)
• 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C Port (10 Gb/s)
• 4x USB 3.2 Gen1 ports
• 2x USB 2.0 ports
• 1x RJ-45 LAN port with LED
• BIOS flashback button with LED
• HD audio jacks