AMD releases low budget A520 Chipset for Ryzen lovers

AMD has released the A520 chipset for users who need their PC to simply work without any hassle. A520 chipset are aimed at entry level PC builds that provide a streamlined trusted platform with plenty of connectivity and bandwidth options. The chipset is designed for its Zen-2 based Ryzen 3000 and 4000 processors. Alongwith the launch comes various vendors such as MSI, Gigabyte, Asrock, ASUS and Biostar with ready to ship A520 motherboards.

The major improvement in A520 over the older A320 chipset is that general purpose lanes on the A520 chipset has support for 26 available PCIe 3.0 lanes compared to slower PCIe 2.0 on the A320 chipset. Also CPU bundled with A520 motherboards will not support overclocking which is OK since these motherboards are low-cost option ones that come with lower power delivery subsystems and are sufficient for stock usage and are not suitable for overclocking.

The A520 chipset also favours PCIe 3.0 x 16 interface for graphics cards which is more than enough. Lack of PCIe 4.0 also means that motherboards cannot utilize speedy PCIe 4.0 SSD experience.

 

Overview of Technical Specifications

• 26x usable PCIe 3.0 lanes with a 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Processor
• Up to 5 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Ports (SuperSpeed 10Gbps)
• Up to 2 native USB 3.1 Ports
• Up to 6 native USB 2.0 Ports
• Up to 4x SATA Ports

 

Processor Support

The A520 chipset has identical processor support to that of the mid-range B550 chipset, with official support for AMD’s current Ryzen 3000 desktop processors as well as AMD’s next-generation Ryzen 4000 processors. Like with the B550 chipset, some A520 boards come with video outputs, which all but confirms support for AMD’s Ryzen 4000 APUs – especially seeing as how A520 doesn’t officially support the earlier Ryzen 3000 or 2000 series APUs.

*Y= Yes, N= No

	Series	μArch	X570	B550	A520	X470	B450	X370	B350	A320
AMD Athlon™ Processors with Radeon Graphics	Athlon A-Series		N	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	Y
1st Gen AMD Ryzen™ Processors	Ryzen 1000 CPU	Zen	N	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
1st Gen AMD Ryzen™ Processors with Radeon™ Graphics	Ryzen 2000 APU	Zen	N	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
2nd Gen AMD Ryzen™ Processors	Ryzen 2000 CPU	Zen+	Y	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
2nd Gen AMD Ryzen™ Processors with Radeon™ Graphics	Ryzen 3000 APU	Zen+	Y	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
3rd Gen AMD Ryzen™ Processors	Ryzen 3000 CPU	Zen 2	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Selective Beta BIOS update needed	Selective Beta BIOS update needed	N
Future AMD Ryzen™ Desktop Processors With the ‘Zen 3’ Architecture	Ryzen 4000 CPU	Zen 3	Y	Y	Y	Selective Beta BIOS update needed	Selective Beta BIOS update needed	N	N	N

The Current A520 Motherboard options

AMD’s official website has listed few of the vendors who have started rolling out respective A520 boards. Below are the links of 3rd party websites offering A520 motherboards: