Closer Look
Like all ASRock motherboards, the ASRock B850M Riptide arrived in a well-described retail package. The box is smaller than the average motherboard box size.
Inside the box is a motherboard, quick installation guide, SATA data cables, thermal sensor cable, WiFi antennas, M.2 screws, and Phantom Gaming logo sticker/badge and cable stripes. It’s everything we may need for the installation and more.
The motherboard’s design has been refreshed in the last series, so the B850 motherboards share the same eye-catching but not too flashy design.
Instead of the EZ release, like in top ASRock models, we have a Graphics Card Lite Release. It’s a more convenient, large, and easier-accessible switch for releasing the graphics card. It’s the only new design feature we found. Everything else is already popular in ASRock motherboards and works well.
The motherboard has a main PCIe slot and one of the M.2 sockets in the 5.0 standard called Blazing. Although we wish for more M.2 PCIe 5.0 sockets, this is enough for most users, especially since we have three PCIe 4.0 x4 sockets and possible RAID configurations.
The B850M Riptide has a 12+2+1 power phase design for VCore, SOC, and MISC, with 20K 1000uF capacitors. It’s not the same as in the top models, but still much above the standard and should handle the most demanding components.
During the tests, we couldn’t hear any coil whine, which suggests the high quality of the design.
I’m glad to see the B850M Riptide has WiFi 7. Most competitive motherboards have WiFi6 or 6E. The audio codec could be newer, but most motherboards on the market, even those from the highest shelf, are equipped with the same Realtek ALC1220. ASRock uses ALC4082 in its top models. Again, most users won’t see (or hear) the difference.
We can’t count on the fastest LAN in B850 motherboards, but the 2.5Gbps option is still good. Fewer people use faster connections at home, and 5Gbps or 10Gbps devices are still expensive.
The B850M Riptide supports all the popular DDR5 memory kits up to 8000MT/s. However, because of how the AMD Ryzen works, the optimal still seems to be 6400MT/s, and the best is dual-rank RAM. In our tests, we used Kingston Renegade RGB 96GB 6400MT/s CL32 kit, which seems the best around as it’s the fastest option at a 1:1 ratio, has a dual-rank design, and runs at tight timings out of the box. It has a programmed XMP profile, but ASRock motherboards handle it well, like EXPO profiles.
Above are some example photos of the test rig. As you can see, the Riptide has an RGB backlight only under the chipset heatsink on the bottom of the motherboard. The overall design still makes it look good and should satisfy gamers and modders.
Another great feature is ASRock’s BIOS/UEFI, which I will describe on the next page of this review.
