Introduction

We have reached another milestone of AMD's quest to overtake the PC market. First, we were introduced to the Ryzen Zen CPU in 2017. This was quickly followed up by Zen+. Next, with the Zen 2 launch, came a new X570 chipset using the same X naming convention, as the follow-up to X470. The initial launch of the X570 along with Ryzen PCIe Gen4 support in 2019 was a bit frustrating for many users, as being new, it suffered from a few quirks.

The most notable addition was the inclusion of a fan on the X570 chipset. This was in part due to the x4 PCIE 4.0 uplink to the CPU, which allowed more M.2 and PCIE slots to use this extra bandwidth. That combined with certain configurations reportedly caused overheating issues and lead to a fan being installed on most of these X570 motherboards. Some of these created unwanted noise with an occasional fan failure as well.

After the highly successful B550 chipset launch that cut back on the CPU uplink, thus lowering power consumption, AMD has decided to give the X570 some extra love. Now, the chipset is passively cooled with the "S" in "X570S" standing for silent. With this refresh, motherboard manufacturers now have a new opportunity to refresh each X570 lineup with new features, including Wi-FI 6E, USB 3.2 20 Gbps connectivity, and higher supported memory frequencies that just weren't available three years ago. It should be noted that it is up to the board manufacturers to include these features.

Because of the higher bandwidth provided to the Southbridge over the budget-originated B550 chipset, the X570 has more to offer when it comes to additional PCIe Gen4 and M.2 slots for consumers to take advantage of when available. Both of these have their place in the market and are competitive to the Intel lineup, which now hosts PCIe Gen4 lanes as well on the latest Intel Z590 chipset paired with an 11th Gen Intel Core processor.


In today's review, we will be taking a close look at the ASRock X570S PG Riptide. Featuring a PCIe 4.0 ready solution with 2.5 GbE Ethernet powered by the Killer E3001G, Wi-Fi Ready, DDR4-5000+ memory support, unique GPU support bracket, and ASRock's software suite to round out the experience, it is time to jump in and find out what the Riptide is all about!

Specifications