The new AMD A520 chipset has just been officially launched, replacing the popular A320, an ideal product for the entrance range of Ryzen 3 or similar processors. This chipset cuts down on the number of available ports but is still perfectly valid for any 1080p home or gaming computer. It supports 3rd generation Zen processors with Zen 2+ cores and future 4th generation processors with Zen 3 cores.
Interestingly, these new boards with AMD A520 chipsets do not support AMD 3xxx APUs with integrated GPUs, something to be considered if you plan to build one of these solutions. We will have to wait for the new AMD 4000 Series APUs with Zen 2+ cores to be able to mount a mini PC with this kind of chipset, something that many are waiting for.
As we can see in the comparison table we have a reduction in the number of PCI, SATA or USB lines, we do not have PCI Gen 4 support and the ability to perform overclocking is blocked. As we can see it is not a platform for those who pretend to have an extreme machine, but it is an economic base for many users.
The line of motherboards with AMD A520 will have a starting price of approximately $100/150 for the simplest products. If we take ASRock as an example we will have the same range as with the B550 chipset. We will have the small mATX formats ASRock A520M Pro4 and the Mini-ITX ASRock A520M ITX/AC. The ASRock A520M Pro4 motherboard has more connectivity and DIMM options, compared to the ASRock A520M ITX/AC, but lacks the built-in Wi-Fi and has a lower phase power delivery going from 6 to 8.
- We hope to have these new motherboards soon in stores like Amazon at competitive prices.
