New AMD A620 Motherboards, DO NOT Support CPU's Over 65 Watt TDP or 88W PPT. Non X Only

[Uttamattamakin]

Summary

In a move that will make a two tiered market for AM5 socketed components, the A620 motherboards will not support all existing AM5 CPU's.   The AMD 7000X CPU's are not a real option unless a motherboard manufacturer decides to go beyond the A620 spec for peak power consumption. 

 

Quotes

Quote

AMD is now taking a similar approach with AM5. The A620 motherboards are designed to support chips with a 65W TDP, meaning models with a peak power consumption of 88W (PPT). Motherboard makers have the option to make more expensive models with support for higher power levels, but at its base, the A620 spec allows for a peak of 88W of power delivery.

For those base models, you can install chips with higher TDP ratings into an A620 motherboard, and it will boot if the BIOS supports it, but the chip will not operate at its full peak power consumption (PPT). This means the highest-end chips will lose some performance in heavily-threaded applications due to VRM limitations on some boards, but AMD expects the reduced power delivery will not impact gaming much.

 

My thoughts

This is not fine.  One path to building your own high end PC is to start with one expensive part and a number of cheap parts... then upgrade as you can afford to.  This way you are sure to always have a working computer and you can learn as you build.  As for the line that you can install a higher performance CPU and it will boot if the BIOS/UEFI supports it, why? The whole point of a high end CPU is to get the processing performance out of it.    A system that does not have/need the all the bells and whistles but does need the full processing power is a thing.  

All of that said, for certain builds this could be a good option.  For example, in a DIY NAS setup where all that is needed is the ability to connect a lot of storage. d

 

Sources

AMD's A620 Chipset Quietly Arrives Without Default Support for 65W-Plus CPUs | Tom's Hardware (tomshardware.com) 

[SorryBella]

1 minute ago, Uttamattamakin said:

The A620 motherboards are designed to support chips with a 65W TDP, meaning models with a peak power consumption of 88W (PPT)

AMD looked at the cheap xeon motherboard recycle market and deadass say: yeah lets do that in AM5.

 

What the fuck.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Well its better than the previous generation where you could buy a motherboard that does this but has the same chipset as one that does not.  At least you should know what you are buying.

[leadeater]

20 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

the A620 motherboards will not support all existing AM5 CPU's

What?

 

[tkitch]

Honestly, I think this is a smart move:

If someone's aiming for a bargain basement board, they're not buying a 7900X or higher, or at least shouldn't.

 

Most people buying the cheapest boards are going to buy much cheaper chips.  I don't see this as that big of a concern, as long as "What is supported" is clearly labeled. 

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, tkitch said:

Honestly, I think this is a smart move:

If someone's aiming for a bargain basement board, they're not buying a 7900X or higher, or at least shouldn't.

 

Most people buying the cheapest boards are going to buy much cheaper chips.  I don't see this as that big of a concern, as long as "What is supported" is clearly labeled. 

I don't see A series being popular like it wasn't every other generation. OEM/ODM tend to pick them for the bottom stuff but you also can't pick non-supported CPUs when buying either. Just need to be aware it's an A series and what you can't do with it if you get one later, like say used or pass on after a business doesn't need it.

[Angusticlavii]

AMD did the same with AM4 - on AM5 it makes even more sense since the boards are more expensive and not everyone needs a power delivery designed for 100+ watt

[GuiltySpark_]

 

Asrock A620M HDV/M.2 (65W Limit)  $85 US on sale now

 

Asrock A620M HDV/M.2+ $99 US on sale now.

 

 

... just spend the $15... why does the cheaper one exist..

 

 

[Uttamattamakin]

16 minutes ago, leadeater said:

What?

If you wanted to go all in on a high end CPU for a build but cheap out on the motherboard as much as possible you can't. Want a nice little SFF home server that will have a 7950X you are SOL.   (7950X because you want your home server to be a virtualization beast).  

Who knows what else.  Perhaps these motherboards would be good for building a little computer to game on using steam OS ... or something of the sort? 

 

20 minutes ago, tkitch said:

Honestly, I think this is a smart move:

If someone's aiming for a bargain basement board, they're not buying a 7900X or higher, or at least shouldn't.

Don't tell me what to do.  

17 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Just need to be aware it's an A series and what you can't do with it if you get one later, like say used or pass on after a business doesn't need it.

What puzzles me is the use case for such a computer.  Yes sure it's cool to have options but when a computer could potentially last 5-10 years what would this even be for?  Maybe a stop gap PC that gets demoted to being a mediacenter/ "console" / underpowered home server? 

22 minutes ago, CaptainKieseI said:

AMD did the same with AM4 - on AM5 it makes even more sense since the boards are more expensive and not everyone needs a power delivery designed for 100+ watt

IN a way.  For example I have a good VERY good Asrock Mini ITX board that I built a nice SFF computer around.  Then when I tried to upgrade to the 5800G APU ... it nuke the board's bios somehow. Had to RMA it and built a whole new mid-tower around the 5800G.  Supposedly the replaced board will support the 5800G.  

We'll see if/when I decide to build say a home server with the old parts.  

The thing is being surprised by something like this is not a great experience.  Since I was able to absorb the cost and the timing wasn't awful it worked out.  Someone just barely affording a build having gone all in on a CPU then cheaping out on other parts....maybe just starting out doing this will not be great.  

Another problem I see are the OEM PC's that people will buy dirt cheap thinking they can always upgrade the CPU latter.  Most people do this and it has been a really cool option for decades.  Odds are now they'll be getting this.

[leadeater]

43 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

If you wanted to go all in on a high end CPU for a build but cheap out on the motherboard as much as possible you can't

Sure but that doesn't mean ALL current CPUs aren't supported though...

 

And you can use any anyway, the CPU will boot just fine but be in restricted PPT mode. Also this isn't even something you should do, nor want. Even cheap B series boards in the past have struggled with x900X and x950X so similarly A series isn't creating a new problem. You can cheap out on your board as much as you like but don't assume your top end 16 core CPU isn't being VRM throttled losing tons of performance.

 

You can do what you want sensibly or you can do it the bad way and you'll get the result deserved, not desired 

 

43 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Want a nice little SFF home server that will have a 7950X you are SOL.   (7950X because you want your home server to be a virtualization beast).  

B series exists. B650M starts at $129 (at least on newegg) so I really don't see a problem here. A series boards have never been popular, this isn't creating a new problem.

[NF-A12x25]

44 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Don't tell me what to do.  

telling you something is stupid (when it is) is not the same as telling you what to do. We can’t tell you what to do but we can absolutely advise you not to.

[Uttamattamakin]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Sure but that doesn't mean ALL current CPUs aren't supported though...

 

Define supported.  They can work but crippled is that really "supported"? 

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

You can do what you want sensibly or you can do it the bad way and you'll get the result deserved, not desired 

True.  There are always compromises.  You aren't wrong about anything you've said. 

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

B series exists. B650M starts at $129 (at least on newegg) so I really don't see a problem here. A series boards have never been popular, this isn't creating a new problem.

Also true.  This may be not a new problem it is keeping a good old problem going.  Especially for people for whom saving up another 40 or 50 dollars might be prohibitive, at least on a 1-2 month time frame.  1-2 months does not sound long but when you don't have a computer and need one it's eternity.   IJS it's a lot easier mentally to cheap out on the build and go for the bargain bin IF you know you can upgrade part by part over time and as funding becomes available. 

 

IT would be more pro consumer in a way if they didn't allow people to waste their savings on a subpar $85 board they may just have to throw away. 

5 minutes ago, NF-A12x25 said:

telling you something is stupid (when it is) is not the same as telling you what to do. We can’t tell you what to do but we can absolutely advise you not to.

Uhm the  was meant to signify I was joking. 

[leadeater]

9 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Define supported.  They can work but crippled is that really "supported"? 

The 3 I highlighted are fully supported. They are 65W TDP CPUs with 88W PPT. They are not in any way crippled.

 

I just don't see this as a problem for these A series chipsets when you can literally buy a B650M and be in the same situation with a 7950X. At least these A series ones official spec is 65W only. If you want to buy something higher and run it anyway that's a choice thing, it's no where near as bad as buying a B650M with no idea your 7950X isn't doing to function properly.

 

One of the two situation I do consider worse. I'd rather be punched knowing I'm going to be hit than blind sided.

[Uttamattamakin]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

The 3 I highlighted are fully supported. They are 65W TDP CPUs with 88W PPT. They are not in any way crippled.

Yes as the story says non X are fully supported.   The ones you hi lighted are the non X variants. 

 

7000X series are not. "The AMD 7000X CPU's are not a real option unless a motherboard manufacturer decides to go beyond the A620 spec for peak power consumption. "  Thanks for confirming that. 

 

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I just don't see this as a problem for these A series chipsets when you can literally buy a B650M and be in the same situation with a 7950X. At least these A series ones official spec is 65W only. If you want to buy something higher and run it anyway that's a choice thing, it's no where near as bad as buying a B650M with no idea your 7950X isn't doing to function properly.

 

One of the two situation I do consider worse. I'd rather be punched knowing I'm going to be hit than blind sided.

Think like someone between say 16 and 24 ish.  I can remember around that age shoving the highest performance CPU I could into a socket 7 or super socket 7 motherboard that would never be able to fully support it only to latter upgrade the motherboard and transplant the other components.  So I can see other people doing just that.   Would it be a situation I would prefer to be in now?  Of course not.  I can just see why some people would think they can do it. 

They ... sort of can but instead of it being a no brainier that it will work now it becomes needing to know which bios version is on a boxed motherboard OR used on cheap pre-built from Best Buy or similar.   A cheap pre-build that would rely on the OEM for bios updates to support anything new. 

I 100% agree with you that these are things no one should ever do.  I just see bad situations that will arise from this.   

[tkitch]

16 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Yes as the story says non X are fully supported.   The ones you hi lighted are the non X variants. 

 

7000X series are not. "The AMD 7000X CPU's are not a real option unless a motherboard manufacturer decides to go beyond the A620 spec for peak power consumption. "  Thanks for confirming that. 

 

Think like someone between say 16 and 24 ish.  I can remember around that age shoving the highest performance CPU I could into a socket 7 or super socket 7 motherboard that would never be able to fully support it only to latter upgrade the motherboard and transplant the other components.  So I can see other people doing just that.   Would it be a situation I would prefer to be in now?  Of course not.  I can just see why some people would think they can do it. 

They ... sort of can but instead of it being a no brainier that it will work now it becomes needing to know which bios version is on a boxed motherboard OR used on cheap pre-built from Best Buy or similar.   A cheap pre-build that would rely on the OEM for bios updates to support anything new. 

I 100% agree with you that these are things no one should ever do.  I just see bad situations that will arise from this.   

There's a reason QVL exists.  If someone is dumb enough to buy a board and CPU without verifying that it's actually properly supported?

That's on them, not the manuf.

[Brooksie359]

53 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Yes as the story says non X are fully supported.   The ones you hi lighted are the non X variants. 

 

7000X series are not. "The AMD 7000X CPU's are not a real option unless a motherboard manufacturer decides to go beyond the A620 spec for peak power consumption. "  Thanks for confirming that. 

 

Think like someone between say 16 and 24 ish.  I can remember around that age shoving the highest performance CPU I could into a socket 7 or super socket 7 motherboard that would never be able to fully support it only to latter upgrade the motherboard and transplant the other components.  So I can see other people doing just that.   Would it be a situation I would prefer to be in now?  Of course not.  I can just see why some people would think they can do it. 

They ... sort of can but instead of it being a no brainier that it will work now it becomes needing to know which bios version is on a boxed motherboard OR used on cheap pre-built from Best Buy or similar.   A cheap pre-build that would rely on the OEM for bios updates to support anything new. 

I 100% agree with you that these are things no one should ever do.  I just see bad situations that will arise from this.   

I am not sure about you but that is not usually the way someone would upgrade slowly. Usually the motherboard is the hardest to upgrade so you wouldn't see someone putting a high end cpu into an A series motherboard with the intention of upgrading the motherboard later. If anything they would simply keep the motherboard and live with it limiting the performance. Honestly you can easily put in the non x version and be fine so not sure why you would spend more on the x version cpu when you are trying to save money? The x version isn't terribly faster so who would be so set on getting the x version with an a series motherboard? I feel like we can't expect companies to create products that have a specific use case and be upset when consumers use it outside that use case it doesn't work well. That is the pc builders problem and you can't expect them to build a budget chipset to fully support high end high powered cpus as that would increase the motherboard cost and completely defeat the purpose of the chipset. I get the sentiment that it would suck if you bought an a series motherboard thinking that it would be able to make full use of cpus like the 7700x but again that is sorta on the pc builder to know what they are doing. I have made a similar mistake in the past and was unable to overclock my cpu due to the chipset not having the power to support the overclock. It allowed me to apply the overclock but unfortunately the power delivery just wasn't designed to overclock that specific cpu even though it supported it. Yeah it sucked but again it wasn't the end of the world and it was a learning moment. 

[Uttamattamakin]

34 minutes ago, tkitch said:

There's a reason QVL exists.  If someone is dumb enough to buy a board and CPU without verifying that it's actually properly supported?

That's on them, not the manuf.

Yes this attitude is 100% appropriate if every computer is built by an experienced enthusiast.  The fact is most aren't.   Most computers are built by OEM's.  I can think of many scenarios where people who won't ever know to check a QVL or spec sheet in any real detail will feel /be cheated buy buying an A620 based system.   Everyone from companies that look at bottom line cost first  to non techy parents who buy a computer for their more tech savvy teens. 

Not everyone is like us here.  I try to remember that. 

[tkitch]

1 minute ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Yes this attitude is 100% appropriate if every computer is built by an experienced enthusiast.  The fact is most aren't.   Most computers are built by OEM's.  I can think of many scenarios where people who won't ever know to check a QVL or spec sheet in any real detail will feel /be cheated buy buying an A620 based system.   Everyone from companies that look at bottom line cost first  to non techy parents who buy a computer for their more tech savvy teens. 

Not everyone is like us here.  I try to remember that. 

And OEMs are smart enough to put supported CPUs on boards.

 

What exactly are you trying to argue here?

[MageTank]

52 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Think like someone between say 16 and 24 ish.  I can remember around that age shoving the highest performance CPU I could into a socket 7 or super socket 7 motherboard that would never be able to fully support it only to latter upgrade the motherboard and transplant the other components.  So I can see other people doing just that.   Would it be a situation I would prefer to be in now?  Of course not.  I can just see why some people would think they can do it. 

They ... sort of can but instead of it being a no brainier that it will work now it becomes needing to know which bios version is on a boxed motherboard OR used on cheap pre-built from Best Buy or similar.   A cheap pre-build that would rely on the OEM for bios updates to support anything new. 

I 100% agree with you that these are things no one should ever do.  I just see bad situations that will arise from this.   

Nothing is going to happen. It has been this way for decades and nothing bad has come of it. AM3 had limits on their boards for 125W despite having processors rated for 200W+ on the same platform. They also booted just fine. The VRM would get a little crispy sometimes...

 

 

You also had boards from Intel on X299 that would disable PCIe lanes, memory channels, M.2 slots, etc based on the installed processor. I personally think it is a bad idea to put the burden on a customer to research the products in-depth, but at the end of the day, companies won't adjust unless it hurts their bottom line and I don't see this hurting their bottom line.

 

Honestly it's no different from customers buying high end memory XMP kits and throwing it in a cheap board and complaining when it doesn't work. Just because higher performance products exist, doesn't mean they will work in every single motherboard/processor combo. 

40 minutes ago, tkitch said:

There's a reason QVL exists.  If someone is dumb enough to buy a board and CPU without verifying that it's actually properly supported?

That's on them, not the manuf.

QVLs are not a guarantee though. A QVL on a board means the board is rated to a certain standard, but it says nothing about the quality of your processors silicon. The same goes for the quality of the individual ICs themselves which can be subject to change within a kit of memory without them changing a part number. QVLs do not mention DIMM revs, and the ICs typically change per rev.

[tkitch]

2 minutes ago, MageTank said:

QVLs are not a guarantee though. A QVL on a board means the board is rated to a certain standard, but it says nothing about the quality of your processors silicon. The same goes for the quality of the individual ICs themselves which can be subject to change within a kit of memory without them changing a part number. QVLs do not mention DIMM revs, and the ICs typically change per rev.

Except on CPU Support, the QVL doesn't change.  (Except possibly for adding newer generations later, when 8000 or whatever comes out.)

 

They'll list the CPUs that the mobo supports.

 

And if the silicon lottery is so bad it won't run at stock speeds?  Then that's a faulty CPU to get RMA'd

[Uttamattamakin]

20 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

I am not sure about you but that is not usually the way someone would upgrade slowly. Usually the motherboard is the hardest to upgrade so you wouldn't see someone putting a high end cpu into an A series motherboard with the intention of upgrading the motherboard later.

I get that.  In a sense the motherboard IS the computer.  Hardware wise getting a new motherboard is building a whole new system even if one reuses all the old components.   Money wise though the motherboard can potentially be a super cheap part of the computer.   Some people see getting a CPU or GPU that performs as more of a priority than a Cadillac of a motherboard. 

For instance: Does anyone test the performance of a high end motherboard VS a low end one given the same parts?  I don't  think I ever seen a reviewer look at motherboards from that perspective.   Maybe they should? 
 

20 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Yeah it sucked but again it wasn't the end of the world and it was a learning moment. 

I agree with 99% of what you said in the rest of this post.  Including the above.  It just sucks that such a "learning moment" needs to even be possible.  I just find it hard to seee the positive use case for such an intentionally crippled piece of hardware. 

18 minutes ago, tkitch said:

And OEMs are smart enough to put supported CPUs on boards.

 

What exactly are you trying to argue here?

You know people who buy pre-builts often do so with the expectation of being able to add ram, add storage, and even upgrade the CPU.    I'd even say the real market for boxed processors isn't DIYing a whole new computer it's upgrading already existing pre-built PCs.  I'd bet money on it if I had any.  The average person needs to have an understandable upgrade path to do that.  Having it be that everything that will fit into socket X will work 100% in socket X is a good way to do that.    This is at least anti-average consumer. 

They should call A620 Socket AM5-  or AM5a or something.  Just make it SUPER clear in a way that people who are barely tech literate can't miss. 

 

Maybe I am thinking too much of people my age early 40's maybe a bit older but who are less into tech.  For a lot of them all they know about CPU's and upgrade paths they learned from old Intel commercials and maybe a tiny bit of past experience when it was more or less standard that if a CPU fit in a CPU socket it would work in that socket.  It might not have all the IO it could but the actual processor would 100% work. 

Example of the old commercials.  Just for funsies. 

That has basically been the average, non techy, non LTT watching persons idea of what bying a computer meant.  Buy cheap now, upgrade parts latter. 

[Brooksie359]

4 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

I get that.  In a sense the motherboard IS the computer.  Hardware wise getting a new motherboard is building a whole new system even if one reuses all the old components.   Money wise though the motherboard can potentially be a super cheap part of the computer.   Some people see getting a CPU or GPU that performs as more of a priority than a Cadillac of a motherboard. 

For instance: Does anyone test the performance of a high end motherboard VS a low end one given the same parts?  I don't  think I ever seen a reviewer look at motherboards from that perspective.   Maybe they should? 
 

I agree with 99% of what you said in the rest of this post.  Including the above.  It just sucks that such a "learning moment" needs to even be possible.  I just find it hard to seee the positive use case for such an intentionally crippled piece of hardware. 

You know people who buy pre-builts often do so with the expectation of being able to add ram, add storage, and even upgrade the CPU.    I'd even say the real market for boxed processors isn't DIYing a whole new computer it's upgrading already existing pre-built PCs.  I'd bet money on it if I had any.  The average person needs to have an understandable upgrade path to do that.  Having it be that everything that will fit into socket X will work 100% in socket X is a good way to do that.    This is at least anti-average consumer. 

They should call A620 Socket AM5-  or AM5a or something.  Just make it SUPER clear in a way that people who are barely tech literate can't miss. 
 

Honestly not being able to overclock sucked but honestly the performance was still acceptable. Sure not ideal but I still was getting my 60 fps in the games I wanted to play which was very good for me at the time considering my budget. I would imagine even if the X series cpus are power limited they would still run good enough for most people especially if they are on a tight budget. Granted hopefully they could avoid this issue by being well informed. 

[porina]

This is fine. People wanted ultra cheap boards. Here they are. You're want more features, you pay more. Cost is the priority here. Don't expect top end features and performance for lowest end cost. If I'm reading it right higher power CPUs can still run with a lower power limit than rated. 65W is plenty for APUs once they get released.

[MageTank]

8 minutes ago, tkitch said:

Except on CPU Support, the QVL doesn't change.  (Except possibly for adding newer generations later, when 8000 or whatever comes out.)

Oh, it's very much an issue on CPUs. Remember the Ryzen 5 1600 that had a newer architecture and required a new microcode to post? Or the Athlon 3000G piccaso vs raven ridge APUs? The latter being a very big deal, because the Athlon 3000G (Picasso) was supported on Windows 11, but the Raven Ridge variant was not. Yet no QVLs listed that discrepancy. https://community.amd.com/t5/processors/differences-between-yd3000c6m2ofh-and-yd3000c6m2ofb/td-p/489413.

 

QVLs are great for guidance, but they are never a guarantee. 

 

24 minutes ago, tkitch said:

And if the silicon lottery is so bad it won't run at stock speeds?  Then that's a faulty CPU to get RMA'd

Again, not always. Let's use the ASUS STRIX Z790-E on my bench. This motherboard is currently training 4x32GB DDR5 memory at 4800Mhz stock. Intel's JEDEC training value for multi-rank DDR5 in a 2DPC configuration is 3600Mhz:

 

You can find this chart in section 5 of the attached PDF. Anyways, JEDEC standard as designed in Intel's white sheets show 3600Mhz, but this motherboards default training value forces it to boot at 4800Mhz. This causes the board to fail 5 memory initializations (core 31) 5 times before going into recovery mode at 3600Mhz. The problem? If you load defaults, or simply exit the BIOS, it goes back into failing to train at 4800 until you manually force it at 4000mhz or lower.

 

Now this doesn't bother me. I am employed to test and qualify this hardware on a daily basis, I know how to get around it and ultimately address it. Doesn't change the fact that the board is at fault, and isn't operating to industry standards. I certainly wouldn't blame a customer's ignorance as it should work at JEDEC speeds by default without loading any profiles.

743844-005.pdf

[Uttamattamakin]

3 hours ago, porina said:

This is fine. People wanted ultra cheap boards. Here they are. You're want more features, you pay more. Cost is the priority here. Don't expect top end features and performance for lowest end cost. If I'm reading it right higher power CPUs can still run with a lower power limit than rated. 65W is plenty for APUs once they get released.

No arguement here.  It's not just the CPU isn't being used to it's full potential due to say ... not having so many Dimm slots or so many PCIE slots or as much IO or something.  That's expected.   What really isn't expected is that the CPU will .. basically under-clock itself.  That the motherboard will cripple the internal ability of the CPU to function.  I think quite a lot of people will built a PC, have it post, be happy until they realize their computer just isn't able to even reach it's base clocks or something. 

 

3 hours ago, MageTank said:

Oh, it's very much an issue on CPUs. Remember the Ryzen 5 1600 that had a newer architecture and required a new microcode to post? Or the Athlon 3000G piccaso vs raven ridge APUs? The latter being a very big deal, because the Athlon 3000G (Picasso) was supported on Windows 11, but the Raven Ridge variant was not. Yet no QVLs listed that discrepancy. https://community.amd.com/t5/processors/differences-between-yd3000c6m2ofh-and-yd3000c6m2ofb/td-p/489413.

 

QVLs are great for guidance, but they are never a guarantee. 

...example about memory....

3 hours ago, MageTank said:

 

Now this doesn't bother me. I am employed to test and qualify this hardware on a daily basis, I know how to get around it and ultimately address it. Doesn't change the fact that the board is at fault, and isn't operating to industry standards. I certainly wouldn't blame a customer's ignorance as it should work at JEDEC speeds by default without loading any p

Exactly which is why the product names of things need to mean something.  It's like ... suppose you bough a box of one Cereal Cinnamon Squares on sale.  Then when you open it ti's Corn Shingles.   Would anyone think it's just fine if the box had a different list of ingredients that made it clear it was not Cinnamon Squares?  No.  People would think that is clearly BS.   

 So far now we have such a bifurcation and it's just been one generation of AM5.   It's like these A620 mobos are more like AM 4.99 or something. It should not take being an expert to just slap together a working computer. 

 

That said maybe this is not such a problem for one reason.  Soon the CPU, a reasonable GPU, RAM, and Storage will all be on one chip with the building of a PC being potentially as simple as seating one chip... and maybe adding some more ram, storage, and a better dGPU. By the time people who buy A620 need to upgrade an SOC might be enough.