ASRock X570S PG Riptide Motherboard Review, Can This $185 US Board Handle A $799 US AMD Ryzen 9 5950X CPU?

It's been more than 2 years since the X570 platform was launched and so far, it has supported two generations of AMD Ryzen CPUs, the Ryzen 3000 (Matisse) and the Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer). While it is a very capable platform, there's much in terms of new I/O features that have been introduced & AMD's board partners are offering a third refresh to the platform.

Touting it as the X570S (S for Silent), one of the main features of the new motherboards is the lack of active cooling solution on the X570 PCH. Several users had requested their respective favorite brands to offer fanless motherboards and well here they are. Rocking brand new designs, features, and improved power delivery, the X570S motherboards are finally available and we are starting our testing spree with a budget-oriented motherboard from ASRock, the X570S PG Riptide which is said to retail at around $200 US.

As we saw with X470, there were a few features of the Ryzen 2000 series processors that were only supported by new motherboards such as Precision Boost Overdrive and XFR 2.0.

There’s no doubt that AMD’s Zen 2 & Zen 3 based Ryzen mainstream processor family has some amazing new features, but the main highlight would be support for PCIe Gen4. The X570 platform is an all PCIe Gen4 solution, which means this is the first consumer platform to feature support for the new PCIe standard.

In terms of IO details, the CPU will once again be offering a total of 24 PCIe Gen 4 lanes while the PCH will be providing a total of 16 PCIe Gen 4 lanes. There will be one direct link heading out to the first PCI Express x16 and PCI Express x4 slot from the CPU, while the rest of the IO will be handled by the X570 PCH which will be linked to the CPU through an x4 link.

Just like the AMD 300 and 400 series motherboards, the 500 series motherboards retain the same AM4 socket. Nothing has changed with the design or pin layout which means that all existing AM4 CPUs and APUs will be compatible with the new motherboards.

The AM4 socket has a total of 1331 contact points for interfacing with Ryzen processors. There was a need to develop a new socket for Ryzen processors since the latter comes with support for DDR4 memory and PCIe Gen 4.0 interface directly from the Ryzen chip. The AM4 socket is featured on the AMD 500 series boards and will extend support to all future AM4 compatible processors.

Since we are looking at a slightly bigger socket that measures 90mm x 54mm, the previous cooler mounting brackets from AM3+ will be non-compatible with AM4. This would require new brackets. Manufacturers in the cooling industry are now offering proper mounting brackets for Ryzen CPUs. Desktop builders who currently have an older AM3+ cooler can also grab the mounting kit for free.

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