BIOS Overview

The BIOS on the ASRock X570S PG Riptide is two steps above a pre-built system. The difference here is that not everything is locked off, but it certainly does not give the impression that all the features of a fully fledged BIOS are present, either.

Absent is the easy mode found on most motherboards these days. For those who are unfamiliar with it, it is an easily navigated, single page, usually the default BIOS screen. It will generally consist of system information, fan-controls, and a one-click X.M.P memory button and is meant for those who do not want to venture into the advanced nitty gritty of a motherboard BIOS. An abundant amount of menus and things with numbers can be daunting to navigate. Many people fear that just going into the advanced menu can break things, which is of course false, but I understand where people are coming from.

If you are looking to setup basic things, like system memory X.M.P or DOCP profiles, those are listed under the "OC Tweaker" tab. This is also where you can set the CPU frequency and voltage for overclocking. However, the more advanced voltage controls, like load-line calibration, are hidden away as secondary sub-menus. Unless you know what to look for, you will find three different menus all related to CPU overclocking, two of which will override each other's voltage.

After poking around, everything that matters for normal operations is accounted for, but as stated above, it is not laid out well for those into quick overclocking and memory tweaking. Also, somewhere within the many menu items, I found the BIOS update utility. You can of course put a USB flash drive into the designated USB port and press the button in the I/O section, but I prefer updating from inside the BIOS because I can see the progress.