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 ESTSystem Performance
Not all motherboards are created equal. On the face of it, they should all perform the same and differ only in the functionality they provide - however, this is not the case. The obvious pointers are power consumption, but also the ability for the manufacturer to optimize USB speed, audio quality (based on audio codec), POST time and latency. This can come down to the manufacturing process and prowess, so these are tested.
Power Consumption
Power consumption was tested on the system while in a single ASUS GTX 980 GPU configuration with a wall meter connected to the Thermaltake 1200W power supply. This power supply has ~75% efficiency > 50W, and 90%+ efficiency at 250W, suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real-world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.
While this method for power measurement may not be ideal, and you feel these numbers are not representative due to the high wattage power supply being used (we use the same PSU to remain consistent over a series of reviews, and the fact that some boards on our testbed get tested with three or four high powered GPUs), the important point to take away is the relationship between the numbers. These boards are all under the same conditions, and thus the differences between them should be easy to spot.
In our power testing, the ASRock X570S PG Riptide performed well with a peak output in our testing of 139 W, with middle-of-the-road power consumption in both long idle and idle power states.
Non-UEFI POST Time
Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we look at the POST Boot Time using a stopwatch. This is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows-specific features.)
The ASRock performed creditably in our non-UEFI POST time testing, with a default booting time of 20.5 seconds, and a slightly reduced boot time of 19.8 seconds with networking and audio controllers disabled.
DPC Latency
Deferred Procedure Call latency is a way in which Windows handles interrupt servicing. In order to wait for a processor to acknowledge the request, the system will queue all interrupt requests by priority. Critical interrupts will be handled as soon as possible, whereas lesser priority requests such as audio will be further down the line. If the audio device requires data, it will have to wait until the request is processed before the buffer is filled.
If the device drivers of higher priority components in a system are poorly implemented, this can cause delays in request scheduling and process time. This can lead to an empty audio buffer and characteristic audible pauses, pops and clicks. The DPC latency checker measures how much time is taken processing DPCs from driver invocation. The lower the value will result in better audio transfer at smaller buffer sizes. Results are measured in microseconds.
We test DPC latency out of the box at default settings, and the ASRock didn't perform as well as we've seen other ASRock models have on AM4. The result shows that the ASRock posted our second-slowest DPC latency on all the AM4 models we've tested so far.
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Arbie - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
$185 - which you could spend on a set of aluminum lawn chairs. I am continually astounded that an ultra-high tech assembly like this, with hundreds of parts each microscopically created, comprising millions of transistors, and with multiple PCB layers, countless holes precisely drilled, and the whole thing electrically and electronically designed, all the drawings, BOM, logistics, testing etc, can appear on a shelf here at this price. Or at twice the price. Or three times.Just an observation...
meacupla - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
That's because your aluminum lawn chairs are overpriced, and have significantly better margins. They probably only cost around $20 to make, $30 to ship, and $30 to store in a your local warehouse, until you bought them. That leaves more than a 50% profit margin for the manufacturer.Where as Mobos have significantly less margin. Mobo makers only have around 10% profit per sale of a mobo, and less than 8% on graphics cards, by the time you can buy one locally. This is also the reason why it's so hard to get RMAs on mobos and graphics cards for certain manufacturers.
Arbie - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
So if lawn chairs cost half as much, mobos would be 0.5 x 10^6 more complex per dollar, instead of 1.0 x 10^6. I get it.TheITS - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
It's much more logically explained by economies of scale, not complexity.Arbie - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
I doubt that orders of magnitude more "ASRock X570S PG Riptide" mobos will be sold than say "Walmart Model XYZ" lawnchair sets. There are major economies of scale in the electronic subcomponents, but the lawnchairs have some too.Overall, I can far more easily see how lawnchairs might arrive at such a price than how a mobo can. In fact the latter appears miraculous compared to almost anything within 10x its price.
Wrs - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
Bulk is a primary cost factor for lawn chairs made abroad. It limits how many products you can pack per container for shipment. For a typical product originating from SE Asia, remember each container has to make the sea and land journey round trip. That typically ranges from $25000-40000 for a 40' truckload to the US, or $600-1000 per linear foot. This holiday season there are unusual shipping backlogs and the price has spiked to $2000 or something. Might not be the best year to get lawn chairs. A corollary is that the more compact the chairs fold or stack into, the cheaper they can be sold for.A mobo box being around 2 large books is comparatively easy to pack, but more importantly the tiny size of most of the components makes shipping costs to assembly site almost trivial. With Moore's law shrinking chips so much, one can still pack millions of transistors on a mature node for just pennies.
ballsystemlord - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
Technical correction @Gavin . You didn't mean to write "... and three PCIe 4.0 x4 slots." You intended "... and three PCIe 4.0 x1 slots".geniekid - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
How well does the GPU bracket/holder actually work?Tomatotech - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
You know, I’m reading this mobo review after reading the details of the new M1 Pro / Max SoC, and all I can think of is that this mobo looks so large and outdated.I think it’s time for processors to start being soldered on, for Intel at least, as they change their sockets so often. I’d happily buy a CPU + mobo + decent igpu + ram + a TB or 2 of SSD space onboard. The whole package should cost less than buying the parts separately and work far better.
The cheaper CPUs can come with 8GB soldered on and the better ones with 16/32/64GB RAM options. 1 TB onboard of fast soldered SSD is enough for most people, and there can still be a M2 slot for adding a few more TB.
I’m not sure how to keep the ability to add a beefy GPU, maybe have a single high speed slot, plus the ability to add a daughterboard with a few more slots if needed, connected by a TB4 cable. (TB is basically PCIe over a cable).
Won’t be to everyone’s taste but it would make life easier and cheaper. Technology marches on and HDDs no longer have replaceable platters (drums), or replaceable arms / actuators. Time to take the next step and integrate the CPU and RAM, god knows Intel’s CPUs need a better RAM connection.
isthisavailable - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
How about no?