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

Easy on the wallet with a loaded specifications list. What more is there to ask for?

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ASRock PG Z790 Riptide
Editor's Choice
(Image: © Tom's Hardware)

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Firmware

Like the other ASRock boards, the Nova starts in Easy Mode – mostly informative – but it lets you change a few options (XMP, profiles, boot order, Fan-Tastic Tuning, etc.). The black background and blue/purple accent colors match the Phantom Gaming look and are easy to read. Advanced mode displays headings across the top, with details below.

Here, you can tweak everything that can be tweaked, as ASRock includes every option you can think of. Overclocking is easy, with most options on the same page, although some power options are in a different section. It’s a logical layout. The movement is smooth, and it’s easy to read—no significant complaints from us about the ASRock firmware.

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ASRock PG Z790 Riptide
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Software

For software, ASRock provides several different options. It has the App Shop to install drivers and software, the Nahimic 3 audio control panel, the A-Tune application that overclocks your system (if applicable), control fans, the Polychrome RGB software, and more. There’s even a pop-up to install drivers when you first boot the system. ASRock’s software provides everything users need to manage and tweak their system.

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ASRock PG Z790 Riptide
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Test System / Comparison Products

We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 64-bit OS with all updates applied as of mid-October 2023. We kept the same Asus TUF RTX 3070 video card from our previous testing platforms but have updated the driver to the latest, keeping our games, F1 22 and Far Cry 6, the same. Unless otherwise noted, we use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public using ‘optimized default’ settings except for the memory (XMP). The hardware and drivers we used are as follows:

Test System Components

Swipe to scroll horizontally
CPUIntel Core i9-14900K
MemoryKingston Fury Beast DDR5-6000 CL36 (KF560C36BBEAK2-32)
Row 2 - Cell 0 Teamgroup T-Force Delta RGB DDR5- 7200 CL34 (FF3D516G7200HC34ABK)
Row 3 - Cell 0 Klevv CRAS XR5 RGB (KD5AGUA80-80R380S)
GPUAsus TUF RTX 3070
CoolingCoolermaster MasterLiquid PL360 Flux
PSUEVGA Supernova 850W P6
SoftwareWindows 11 64-bit (22H2)
GraphicsNVIDIA Driver 537.42

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Benchmark Settings

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Synthetic Benchmarks and SettingsRow 0 - Cell 1
ProcyonVersion 2.6.848 64
Row 2 - Cell 0 Office Suite (Office 365), Video Editing (Premiere Pro 23.6), Photo Editing (Photoshop 25.0, Lightroom Classic 12.5)
3DMarkVersion 2.27.8177 64
Row 4 - Cell 0 Firestrike Extreme (v1.1) and Time Spy (v1.2) Default Presets
Cinebench R24Version ‘build unknown’
Row 6 - Cell 0 Open GL Benchmark - Single and Multi-threaded
BlenderVersion 3.6.0
Row 8 - Cell 0 Full benchmark (all 3 tests)
Application Tests and SettingsRow 9 - Cell 1
LAME MP3Version SSE2_2019
Row 11 - Cell 0 Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s)
HandBrake CLIVersion: 1.2.2
Row 13 - Cell 0 Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19GB 4K mkv to x264 (light AVX) and x265 (heavy AVX)
Corona 1.4Version 1.4
Row 15 - Cell 0 Custom benchmark
7-ZipVersion 21.03-beta
Row 17 - Cell 0 Integrated benchmark (Command Line)
Game Tests and SettingsRow 18 - Cell 1
Far Cry 6Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080, HD Textures ON
F1 2022Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080, Ultra High (default) Bahrain (Clear/Dry), FPS Counter ON

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Joe Shields
Joe Shields
Motherboard Reviewer

Joe Shields is a Freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US. He reviews motherboards.

12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • 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-wifiwifi
    Reply
  • 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.
    Reply
  • 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.
    Reply
  • Hrdwr
    thestryker said:
    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....
    Reply
  • xyriin
    Hrdwr said:
    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.
    Reply
  • 35below0
    Hrdwr said:
    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.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    Hrdwr said:
    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.
    Hrdwr said:
    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.
    Reply
  • xyriin
    thestryker said:
    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.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    xyriin said:
    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.
    Reply
  • Hrdwr
    thestryker said:
    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...
    Reply