Board Layout

The X570S PG Riptide has the modern contemporary 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 on the chipset lights up with RGB LEDs.


The CPU socket is adequate for most air coolers. The VRM heatsink is fairly tall, which will block any coolers managing to reach into this area.


There are two M.2 slots on the ASRock X570S 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, wired for x4, which runs through the X570S chipset. Only the top slot features a full-coverage heatsink.


The ASRock X570S PG Riptide offers three PCI Express x16 slots, with the top slot steel-reinforced and PCIe 4.0 compatible. The other two Gen4 PCIe x16 slots are actually wired as x4, as seen from the pin layout on the backside of the PCB. An additional three PCI Express 4.0 x1 slots are included as well. Every PCIe slots besides the top, real x16 slot is connected to the chipset as listed in the manual. To reiterate, only the top M.2 and PCIe x16 slots have the bandwidth supplied directly by the CPU. This is normal for many motherboards. However, quite a number of boards do have the second x16 slot wired for 8x; it can be split with the first slot. This is not the case with this particular ASRock board.

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 slot is used. Ports five and six will be disabled due to bandwidth allocations. This bugs me a bit, and you will often see one of the PCIe slots can be disabled instead. Choose your poison, so to speak. That said, not everyone will be using the same storage configurations.


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 slot is in use.


One of ASRock's main selling points is this GPU support bracket. It uses the same mounting holes as a case. Instead of using the supplied screws with the case, ASRock has included two sets of screws for different types of threads. At first, I thought neither screw set fit my Phanteks standoffs, but it turns out the thread-locker glue was the culprit of my problems.


Networking on the ASRock X570S PG Riptide is handled by a Killer E3001G 2.5 Gb/s controller.


The ASRock X570S PG Riptide has taken a bare-bones approach to I/O offerings. The only notable expectation is the PS/2 port that could be handy for backwards compatibility. I said in the beginning of the review that the X570 chipset offers more in terms of connectivity, but it does have to be implemented. The ASRock PG Riptide is a prime example of a refresh without adding anything new in terms of connectivity.

• 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