Review ASRock PG Z790 Riptide Review: Best Z790 board around $230

[Admin]

Priced around $230, the ASRock PG Z790 Riptide provides users with everything the Z790 platform offers. This includes native 14th-gen support, capable power delivery, five M.2 sockets (one PCIe 5.0) and eight SATA ports, and an appearance (with RGBs) that fits most build themes.

ASRock PG Z790 Riptide Review: Best Z790 board around $230 : Read more

 

[Gururu]

I got a little confused because there are two boards, one is WiFi and the other is not. This appears to be the Wifi Version.
non-wifi
wifi

 

[thestryker]

If PCIe 5.0 M.2 is going to be listed as a pro on Z790 it also needs to be in con for cutting the primary slot to x8 when in use. Like most boards it also doesn't actually add a M.2 to the board either because it's one or the other situation between M2_1 and M2_5 so it doesn't actually have 5 M.2 slots it has 4.

 

[xyriin]

Recently purchased this board for my upgrade to a 14700K. The hardware is great and a better value than similar offerings.

The flaw? ASRock's RGB software is hot garbage.

How bad? When the software locks up while you are changing lighting settings it corrupts the firmware. For a fix you have to flash firmware and reboot. I haven't been able to run the software longer than 5 minutes without a crash.

 

[Hrdwr]

If PCIe 5.0 M.2 is going to be listed as a pro on Z790 it also needs to be in con for cutting the primary slot to x8 when in use. Like most boards it also doesn't actually add a M.2 to the board either because it's one or the other situation between M2_1 and M2_5 so it doesn't actually have 5 M.2 slots it has 4.

Not really, that's mostly the case which cheaper boards where pcie 5.0 and pcie 4.0 m.2 slots overlap physically or all m.2 ports except one are connected to chipset. Here you can really use all 5 simultaneously (first 2 are connected to the cpu and other 3 to chipset) and this is cheapest such board you can find. Asrock Nova is probably only one where you can have 6. Keep in mind that having 2 or more on the chipset can bottleneck chipset connection that has only 8 DMI lanes, but using so many drives at once is rare case scenario and people needing more high speed connectivity should opt for lower tier AMD based HEDT. Nevertheless, prior to this you would need 4 m.2 slot PCIE card for this purpose that would cost you at least 100$ and be worse at cooling those drives. As there's less available 4TB nvme and 8TB are expensive and there's no use using SATA SSD at these prices many people will find use of this. As for the x8 GPU penalty it's only 5% for fastest GPUs so a none issue for most people anyway... There's always some compromising to do and all these features are fantastic storage leap compared to ones we had just few years ago....

 

[xyriin]

Not really, that's mostly the case which cheaper boards where pcie 5.0 and pcie 4.0 m.2 slots overlap physically or all m.2 ports except one are connected to chipset. Here you can really use all 5 simultaneously (first 2 are connected to the cpu and other 3 to chipset) and this is cheapest such board you can find. Asrock Nova is probably only one where you can have 6. Keep in mind that having 2 or more on the chipset can bottleneck chipset connection that has only 8 DMI lanes, but using so many drives at once is rare case scenario and people needing more high speed connectivity should opt for lower tier AMD based HEDT. Nevertheless, prior to this you would need 4 m.2 slot PCIE card for this purpose that would cost you at least 100$ and be worse at cooling those drives. As there's less available 4TB nvme and 8TB are expensive and there's no use using SATA SSD at these prices many people will find use of this. As for the x8 GPU penalty it's only 5% for fastest GPUs so a none issue for most people anyway... There's always some compromising to do and all these features are fantastic storage leap compared to ones we had just few years ago....

You are correct that there are five independent M.2 slots that can be used at the same time. However, even the Asrock Nova board is limited to x8 mode on PCIE1 when the PCIe Gen5 M.2 slot is in use. Even ultra high-end boards like the Asus ROG Formula/Dark Hero that have two PCIE Gen5 PCIE slots; disable PCIE2 and degrade PCIE1 to x8 when using the PCIe Gen5 M.2 slot.

In my opinion, we just aren't there yet for PCIe Gen 5 drives. Until CPUs and chipsets can support 16x16 it doesn't make a whole lot of sense and the cooling concern is still a factor.

 

[35below0]

Not really, that's mostly the case which cheaper boards where pcie 5.0 and pcie 4.0 m.2 slots overlap physically or all m.2 ports except one are connected to chipset. Here you can really use all 5 simultaneously (first 2 are connected to the cpu and other 3 to chipset) and this is cheapest such board you can find. Asrock Nova is probably only one where you can have 6. Keep in mind that having 2 or more on the chipset can bottleneck chipset connection that has only 8 DMI lanes, but using so many drives at once is rare case scenario and people needing more high speed connectivity should opt for lower tier AMD based HEDT. Nevertheless, prior to this you would need 4 m.2 slot PCIE card for this purpose that would cost you at least 100$ and be worse at cooling those drives. As there's less available 4TB nvme and 8TB are expensive and there's no use using SATA SSD at these prices many people will find use of this. As for the x8 GPU penalty it's only 5% for fastest GPUs so a none issue for most people anyway... There's always some compromising to do and all these features are fantastic storage leap compared to ones we had just few years ago....

I agree about asking too much from a cheaper board, but the objection about downgrading the main PCIe x16 slot stands. There are practically no other features that conflict with each other or cancel each other out, or are limited and disclaimed with *** (RAM being the most obvious exception). the PCIE1 and M.2_A are kind of important and not being able to have both almost defeats the purpose of "blazing" 5.0 NVMes
I wouldn't so off-handedly dismiss the 8x downgrade.

On the other hand, this board costs less and offers plenty of M.2 slots. So the non-gamer and gamer can both have their cake with the same board. Just not both cakes.

 

[thestryker]

Not really, that's mostly the case which cheaper boards where pcie 5.0 and pcie 4.0 m.2 slots overlap physically or all m.2 ports except one are connected to chipset. Here you can really use all 5 simultaneously (first 2 are connected to the cpu and other 3 to chipset) and this is cheapest such board you can find.

So about that in the manual it quite literally says the following:

Either M2_1 or M2_5 can be used at a time.

They literally occupy the same area on the motherboard with alternating socket sides. Even if it did work you're not going to stack a PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 drive.

Asrock Nova is probably only one where you can have 6. Keep in mind that having 2 or more on the chipset can bottleneck chipset connection that has only 8 DMI lanes, but using so many drives at once is rare case scenario and people needing more high speed connectivity should opt for lower tier AMD based HEDT. Nevertheless, prior to this you would need 4 m.2 slot PCIE card for this purpose that would cost you at least 100$ and be worse at cooling those drives. As there's less available 4TB nvme and 8TB are expensive and there's no use using SATA SSD at these prices many people will find use of this. As for the x8 GPU penalty it's only 5% for fastest GPUs so a none issue for most people anyway... There's always some compromising to do and all these features are fantastic storage leap compared to ones we had just few years ago....

Adding a PCIe 5.0 M.2 is not necessary for having a ton of M.2 connectivity. It's a tradeoff (until Intel adds dedicated lanes which they are) for very minimal returns to check a box. You can get the same thing by wiring up two PCIe slots to PCIe 5.0, but give your customers more flexibility in the process. Nobody should be happy with making their primary slot x8 and only being able to use x4 of the remnant.

 

[xyriin]

So about that in the manual it quite literally says the following:

They literally occupy the same area on the motherboard with alternating socket sides. Even if it did work you're not going to stack a PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 drive.

Adding a PCIe 5.0 M.2 is not necessary for having a ton of M.2 connectivity. It's a tradeoff (until Intel adds dedicated lanes which they are) for very minimal returns to check a box. You can get the same thing by wiring up two PCIe slots to PCIe 5.0, but give your customers more flexibility in the process. Nobody should be happy with making their primary slot x8 and only being able to use x4 of the remnant.

You may be thinking about another motherboard model. The PG Riptide has five physically discrete M.2 slots that do not overlap. You can see this on page 7 of the manual. In addition, the following warnings about the dedicated M.2 Gen 5 slot are as follows:

Page 2 - If M.2_GEN5 is occupied, PCIE1 will downgrade to x8 mode.
Page 4 - If M.2_GEN5 is occupied, PCIE1 will downgrade to x8 mode.
Page 25 - If M.2_GEN5 is occupied, PCIE1 will downgrade to x8 mode.
Page 44 - If M.2_GEN5 is occupied, PCIE1 will downgrade to x8 mode.
Page 47-52 - Cover installation of M2_1-4 and no warnings related to M2_GEN5
Page 12 - You can see the lane assignments where the M2_GEN5 slot shares ONLY with PCIE1

Further, the manual never refers to any M.2 slot as M2_5; only M2_1, M2_2, M2_3, M2_4 and M2_GEN5. You are of course free to correct any errors by referencing the appropriate page number in the manual.

But going back to your original statement. Your first sentence is correct in that using M2_GEN5 will drop PCIE1 to x8. However, your second sentence is incorrect because the PG Riptide can use five M2 drives at the same time.

 

[thestryker]

You may be thinking about another motherboard model.

Yup there are apparently two different PG Z790 Riptide boards and this review misnames the one being reviewed (WIFI is part of the name). I should have looked for the matching wifi spec, but yeah splitting the lanes off is still dumb.

 

[Hrdwr]

So about that in the manual it quite literally says the following:

They literally occupy the same area on the motherboard with alternating socket sides. Even if it did work you're not going to stack a PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 drive.

I stand corrected, I thought the article is about riptide wifi, not regular riptide. That one actually has 5 independent m.2 slots and all can be used at the same time, but pcie 5.0 slot still gets downgraded. It also has heatsinks for all the drives, tad better VMRs and support for up to 8000 mhz memory, but does cost more...

 

[xyriin]

I stand corrected, I thought the article is about riptide wifi, not regular riptide. That one actually has 5 independent m.2 slots and all can be used at the same time, but pcie 5.0 slot still gets downgraded. It also has heatsinks for all the drives, tad better VMRs and support for up to 8000 mhz memory, but does cost more...

This review is for the PG Riptide Wifi, it just wasn't stated in the headline. In reading the article they talk about the integrated Wifi 7 and how other boards at this price point don't have Wifi.

This review model (PG Riptide Wifi) has 5x M.2 while the older PG Riptide has the shared M.2 slot.

 

[thestryker]

I stand corrected, I thought the article is about riptide wifi, not regular riptide. That one actually has 5 independent m.2 slots and all can be used at the same time, but pcie 5.0 slot still gets downgraded. It also has heatsinks for all the drives, tad better VMRs and support for up to 8000 mhz memory, but does cost more...

No you were correct they just never said the correct model name in the review and I didn't check the wifi revision on the board.

 

[vekspec]

Next are six USB ports: two USB 2.0 (480 Mbps), five USB 3.2 Gen1 (5 Gbps) including a Type-C, and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) that are also the Lightning USB ports.

Think you have a typo listed in the IO connectors. On the back in your picture it shows 2 5gbs, 2 10gbs. And if the lighting ports are also 10gbps wouldn’t that be 4 10gbps?

https://imgur.com/a/wobUsJW