Early morning last August 19, 2020 the AMD A520 motherboard was released. It is the latest iteration of their budget chipset for the Ryzen 3000 and upcoming 4000 series (not including Ryzen 3xxxG APU models).
Table of Contents
General AMD A520 Features
The AMD A520 is a successor to the budget A320 Chipset. And since it is targeted for budget builders, it will not have PCIe Gen 4.0. Furthermore, like the A320 chipset that came before, overclocking is not enabled on models for this line. It will have a total of thirteen USB ports; five being USB 3.2 Gen2. A maximum of 6 SATA Ports is guaranteed, and will have only one 1×16 PCIe and 1×4 NVMe slot direct to the Processor. A total of 34 PCIe lanes with 26 of these are useable.
The table below will summarize its features while comparing with the other chipsets of this generation.
| X570 | B550 | A520 | |
| Total USB | 16 | 14 | 13 |
| USB 3.2 Gen2 | 12 | 6 | 5 |
| Maximum SATA Ports | 10 | 8 | 6 |
| Graphics | 1×16/2×8 | 1×16/2×8 | 1×16 |
| NVMe | 1×4 | 1×4 | 1×4 |
| PCIe Generation | PCIe 4.0 | PCIe 4.0 | PCIe 3.0 |
| PCIe Total / Usable Lanes | 44/36 | 38/30 | 34/26 |
| Overclocking Enabled | Yes | Yes | No |
ALSO READ: Consider the AMD Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300, B550 Motherboards for building a Starter PC
Manufacturers’ A520 Motherboard Roundup
The following is a list of manufacturers’ A520, while the chipset has the listed features commonly found from the table above. Each manufacturer have their own implementation and special features on their board/s.
ASRock A520 Motherboards
ASRock has released a range of motherboards with the A520 chipset, mostly mATX boards and one iTX board. The A520M Pro4 is the lead board for this line; featuring M.2 Key slot for WiFi, 4 DIMM Slots, support for three monitors and 2 M.2 Slots for SSDs. While the A520M ITX/ac is a compact board ideal for mini builds. It features an 8-phase power design, and dual band 802.11ac WiFi. All of these boards will support ASRock’s Polychrome Sync Lighting, Nahimic Audio, and Memory boost of up to 4733Mhz.
No price or availability here in the Philippines has been announced yet.
ASUS A520 Motherboards
ASUS has three models that will come with the AMD A520 chipset. The models are the TUF Gaming A520M-Plus, A520 Prime-K and A520 Pro motherboards. These will have 32MB flash ROM, aside from PCIe 3.0.
The motherboards will be made available for purchase here in the Philippines next week. Here are their prices:
| Model | SRP |
| TUF Gaming A520M Plus | Php 4,470 |
| PRIME A520M-K | Php 3,930 |
Gigabyte A520 Motherboards
Gigabyte has revealed their A520 motherboard lineup. Compared to the other manufacturers so far, they have released a full range of motherboards from ATX to ITX. Another thing to note of the board lineup is that these will come in either AORUS or UD series. And true to Gigabyte build quality, boards come with advanced thermal design.
All Gigabyte A520 Motherboards will have GbE wired networking design. The A520M DS3H AC and A520I AC has integrated 802.11ac wireless. And the A520 AORUS Elite integrates USB 3.2 Gen2 offering 10Gbps high speed data transfer.
Pre-installed I/O shield armor design lets easier assembly of builds on the A520 AORUS Elite. Other aesthetic features included for all A520 motherboards is the RGB Fusion Technology.
As for BIOS, A520 motherboards come with exclusive Q-Flash aiding in updating BIOS without needing a processor, memory, graphics cards or booting up in order to flash.
No price or availability here in the Philippines has been announced yet.
MSI A520 Motherboards
With MSI, their A520 motherboard offerings belong to the MAG Series to PRO Series. Having exclusive DDR4 Boost and A-XMP for memory provides stability and improve performance up to 4600MHz. 2oz thickened Copper PCB applied to the motherboards also provide better performance and stability.
The MAG A520M Vector WiFi is the latest in the MAG Series. It comes equipped with the MSI Extended Heatsink Design. This preempts the rise in temperature of the PWM, ensuring stable operations for the motherboard. The M.2 slot has Turbo M.2 and is protected with MSI’s M.2 Shield Frozr to keep it from throttling. It supports WiFi AC 3168 and has Gigabit LAN to have the flexibility of working with or without cables. HDMI and DisplayPort is included for those using Ryzen 4000 APUs.
The MSI PRO Series are the baseline A520 motherboard models. These models support Turbo M.2 Gen3 x4 and 4k display through HDMI and DisplayPort. MSI M.2 Shield Frozr is included to provide necessary thermal protection for M.2 SSDs and avoid throttling. For network, it has a Gigabit LAN included. Three mATX motherboards are available: A520M PRO, A520M-A PRO and A520M PRO-C DASH.
No price or availability here in the Philippines has been announced yet.
