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 ESTOverclocking Ryzen 3000
Experience with the ASRock X570S PG Riptide
Despite AMD's Ryzen 5000's presence on the current market and support for these across various AM4 chipsets, we do all of our AM4 testing with the Ryzen 7 3700X processor for consistency. Overclocking can yield many benefits in performance, but at the drawback of extra heat and power. This is a consequence of adding more CPU VCore. (It should also be noted that right now I do not have a 5950X for motherboard testing, but as we've used this 3700X for so many AM4 boards in the past, we know its characteristics quite well - an overclocking motherboard should also be able to push other CPUs than just the flagships too).
Most power delivery is over-engineered to support the latest processors, however hot they run. This is a continuance of CPU vendors constantly pushing default and turbo clocks, pushing the silicon to its limits. Anyone looking to overclock will need to consider more aggressive cooling types such as hefty premium AIOs.
All of ASRock's overclocking options can be found within the OC Tweaker section of the firmware, with plenty of options to overclock the processor, memory, and integrated graphics on Ryzen APUs. ASRock has all the options present in a long list, with some sub-sections for things like memory latencies and power options. Users looking to overclock the CPU can do so by setting the CPU Frequency and CPU VCore voltage which is located third from the top in the above BIOS image. Other options include setting the Loadline Calibration level for more aggressive or conservative VDroop on the CPU VCore, although users could leave this on automatic.
There's also plenty of options to overclock memory including latency timing options, as well as the ability to just simply enable X.M.P 2.0 profiles on compatible kits of memory. When overclocking the memory on Ryzen, users can adjust the Infinity Fabric Clock speed (FCLK) with the best results achieved by setting a 2:1 ratio in terms of the memory speed, e.g, DDR4-3600 at an FCLK of 1800 MHz.
Overclocking with the ASRock X570S PG Riptide is simple to do. There are fewer options than expected when compared to more premium models, but for the price point, there's plenty to like from an overclocking point of view here.
Overclocking Methodology
Our standard overclocking methodology is as follows. We select the automatic overclock options and test for stability with POV-Ray and OCCT to simulate high-end workloads. These stability tests aim to catch any immediate causes for memory or CPU errors.
For manual overclocks, based on the information gathered from the previous testing, start off at a nominal voltage and CPU multiplier. The multiplier is increased until the stability tests are failed. The CPU voltage is increased gradually until the stability tests are passed. The process is repeated until the motherboard reduces the multiplier automatically (due to safety protocol) or the CPU temperature reaches a stupidly high level (105ºC+). Our testbed is not in a case, which should push overclocks higher with fresher (cooler) air.
We use and overclock with the Ryzen 7 3700X on AM4 for consistency to compare with previous models in our previous overclocking testing.
Overclocking Results
Overclocking our AMD Ryzen 7 3700X with the ASRock X570S PG Riptide showed that despite its price tag, it has plenty about it. The PG Riptide has no preset overclocking profiles for us to test, but it performed well in our frequency testing from 3.8 GHz to 4.3 GHz. We managed to achieve a maximin stable overclock of 4.3 GHz at 1.350 V on the CPU VCore, which is quite formidable for a board such as this.
Going from 3.8 GHz to 4.3 GHz, we observed relatively tight CPU VCore VDroop at full-load, and this was consistent throughout all of our testing. This is because when users change the CPU VCore within the firmware, it automatically sets the Loadline Calibration level to the highest level which is Level 1. As we went up every 100 MHz stepping in our testing, so did the performance in POV-Ray which is consistent with other results from other models we've tested with the same hardware configuration.
Overall overclocking on the ASRock X570S PG Riptide surprised us a little, as it performs just as well as other models both around the same price point and models above it in the stack.
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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'.