AMD Releases A520 Motherboards

[zeusthemoose]

Summary

   As was rumored months ago (and talked about on a few status updates today) the A520 Motherboard chipset has just come out. It will support ryzen 3000 (not including Ryzen 3 3200G or Ryzen 5 3400G) and the upcoming processors with the Zen 3 architecture (ryzen 4000). 

   The chipset will not have support for PCIe 4.0, Instead they will have up to 26 PCIe 3.0 lanes. They are going to have more USB 3.2 Gen 2 port than their predecessors. 

   With prices as low as $62, these motherboards will likely be the go to for ultra low-budget builds. Many of them are already available. See the anandtech link for a full list.

 

Quotes

Quote

AMD has officially lifted the lid on its latest entry-level chipset designed for its Zen 2-based Ryzen 3000 and 4000 processors, the A520 chipset. Following AMD's mid-tier B550 chipset launch a few months back, A520 brings up the bottom of AMD's now fully-modernized chipset stack, dialing down on things like PCIe speeds to allow its board partners to build more budget-friendly Ryzen 3000/4000 motherboards.

Overall, A520 offers up to twenty-six available PCIe 3.0 lanes available when paired with a Ryzen 3000 processor, with twenty of these coming directly from the CPU. And, wasting no time, numerous vendors, including ASUS, ASRock, GIGABYTE, MSI, and Biostar have already unveiled some of their entry-level A520 boards.

(anandtech)

 

My thoughts

 I hadn't heard that these motherboards were expected to be launched this month, so this was very surprising to me. But it makes sense they would release their new budget boards around this time. I find it weird that they do not support ryzen 3000 apus, but chances are they will be a very popular pairing with the upcoming ryzen 4000 apus.

 

Sources

 AMD 

 anandtech

 pcgamer

 kitguru

[dizmo]

Seriously though, this chipset is beyond boring. Kind of odd they chose not to make it compatible with the G series CPUs, seeing as they're what most people would likely want to use on something like this.

[aisle9]

$62? Yeesh. Did someone remind them that even in these times of crappy prices, you can still get entry-level B450 boards for $80-ish? There's an entry-level AsRock B550 board out there for $80. Someone shopping at this point probably doesn't need A-tier VRMs, so if a budget builder can scrounge up the extra $20, either of those options are a better value.

[zeusthemoose]

2 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

$62? Yeesh. Did someone remind them that even in these times of crappy prices, you can still get entry-level B450 boards for $80-ish? There's an entry-level AsRock B550 board out there for $80. Someone shopping at this point probably doesn't need A-tier VRMs, so if a budget builder can scrounge up the extra $20, either of those options are a better value.

Thats just the cheapest one availble today. Im assuming cheaper ones will come out in the next few days/weeks.

[GDRRiley]

1 hour ago, zeusthemoose said:

I find it weird that they do not support ryzen 3000 apus, but chances are they will be a very popular pairing with the upcoming ryzen 4000 apus.

zen+ chips not zen2. that is why they don't have support yet

 

[Moonzy]

on one hand i can see why not being able to OC Zen 2 chips isnt much of a big deal, little to no headroom most of the time anyways

i also understand why they're not supporting older chips as who is buying a ryzen 1600 nowadays to pair with this board?

 

but what i dont understand is, why not support at least 3000 series (zen+) APUs? are there zen 2 APUs already?

 

also wondering if undervolting can be done, even if you cant overclock, might consider getting one for my 3900x when it retires (and if AM4 is still alive by then)

[mr moose]

I'll give AMD one thing, they managed to make it to zen 3000series with only minor feature hickups. (not including the whole zen3 debacle).

 

Last time they tried a long platform support period it was a feature mess halfway through.

 

 

 

 

 

[GDRRiley]

27 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

are there zen 2 APUs already?

yes OEM only right now until AMD can get enough supply

[Doobeedoo]

Really these should be very good for the new APUs though. 

[vortextech77]

For APU builds this seems nice but for anything else I'd just go for a B450 or above

[Skipple]

Yeah I'm not sure why everyone is so down on this here. Are they meant for enthusiasts? No, of course not. Don't treat it like it's meant for you.

For budget builds, this is awesome. Imagine pairing a 3400g w/ a motherboard for $160. That's a pretty sweet deal. You could realistically build an entire PC you can game on for $350. 

[SavageNeo]

i mean nice for apu builds in general. like some 62$ with decent enough VRMs (for 3400g/3200g you do not need that good VRMs)

[Xwartu]

All this talk of budget boards and here I sprang for a X570 at $270 for my first build. Though in my own defense, I was on a time crunch and it was when a lot of X570 boards were out of stock.