The Box and Packaging
Inside the box, you’ll find the usual user manual, WiFi 7 antennas, a pair of SATA cables, a 3-pn ARGB splitter cable, a thermal probe and an ASRock keycap. There’s no M.2 screws or Velcro straps anymore.
The ASRock Z790 PG Riptide WiFi Motherboard
The motherboard has a nice matte black finish with several large heatsinks that cover the VRM, Mofets and the M.2 slots for your SSDs. There’s no RGB on the I/O hood or additional fans on the motherboard.
You’ll find a special eDP port which allow users to connect the optional ASRock 13.3” LCD Side Panel kit.
For storage, you get 1 x Blazing M.2 (PCIe Gen5x4), and 4 x Hyper M.2 (PCIe Gen4x4) slots, as well as 8 additional SATA ports (6+2). The heatsink for the Blazing M.2 (PCIE Gen5) slot features a quick release latch for easy mounting of your SSDs.
The Polychrome RGB lighting is located along the bottom heatsink covering the Hyper M.2 slots.
A Closer Look
On the top left-hand corner of the board, you’ll find 2 x 8-pin PCIE power connectors. Make sure that both of these are connected to the power supply for normal operation, plus it will give you that extra stability especially when overclocking.
For connectivity, you get the Killer E3100G 2.5GbE LAN and the Wi-Fi 7 802.11be via the M.2 Key-E module which is already installed.
For RGB lovers, you’ll find 2 x 3-pin ARGB (5V) headers located on the top right side of the motherboard, and another 1 x 3-pin ARGB (5V) header, as well as 1 x 4-pin RGB (12V) towards the bottom middle of the board.
For expansion, you get 1 x PCIE 5.0 x16 slots (with Surface-Mount Tech), 1 x PCIe 4.0 x16, and 1 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slot.
And finally, you also get all of ASRock’ unique features such as the auto driver installer, Dr. MOS, 8-layer PCB, and the Realtek 7.1 HD Nahimic audio and Polychrome RGB.
On the rear I/O panel, there’s loads of connectors including … 2 x Antenna Mounting Points (for WiFi 7), 1 x HDMI Port, 1 x DisplayPort 1.4, 2 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A Ports (10 Gb/s), 1 x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-C Port, 4 x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A Ports (USB32_56 are Lightning Gaming Ports), 2 x USB 2.0 Ports, 1 x 2.5 GbE LAN Port, and an array of HD Audio Jacks: Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone.
