New MSI boards for Ryzen with A520 chipset. AMD officially announced the A520 chipset last night. This is their new low-end chipset for AM4 socket processors, offering a slight improvement over the A320 and, most importantly, standard support for the Ryzen 3000 and will be ready for the next generation of AM4 chipsets. Would you like to learn more about these new affordable boards? Let us see them.
A520 MSIE disks We start with the three cheapest models. These are disks that are clearly designed for use in office equipment and differ slightly in their specifications.
For example, the A520M PRO-C DASH differs from the other two in that it has some ports that are not very common in certain office environments, namely: COM ports, “printer” ports and LAN DASH.
In all cases, we have a basic VRM without power dissipation and 2 DIMM slots. You can see the specifications in detail on the MSI website:
- A520M-A PRO
- A520M PRO
- A520M PRO-C STROKE
- MSI MAG A520M WIFI VECTOR
The last board we present to you is the most interesting, as it is designed for devices with higher performance than the previous ones. The first thing that attracts our attention is to see how your VRM is dissipated. This can make a big difference in the stability, durability, and performance of the simplest VRMs, such as the one this board is expected to carry. The M2 connector is also dissipated to avoid problems of throttling in case you install one.
To continue with the most basic features, the connectivity stands out, as the Gigabit LAN has been added to support WiFi AC 3168, something potentially positive, but also something worrying, as it certainly means a price increase for something that many don’t need.
Finally, it should be noted that the cards have a DisplayPort and an HDMI connector to use Renoir APUs or higher. You can find all the important specifications on the MSI website.
Do you hesitate between A520 and B450? Are you in a dilemma between performance or compatibility? Read our article about the future of B450/X470 boards and their compatibility with Ryzen 4000.
This last board can be a good option for many gaming devices if it is cheap. For those users who will not touch more things in the BIOS than the XMP, this board could be an acceptable option in terms of performance. All this is in lack of knowledge of the quality of your VRM, but at least it is scattered is a good sign.
As we said, we are concerned that the price is not cheap. For example, if it costs the same as some of MSI’s “B450 MAX” offers, with 32 MB BIOS and reasonably assured future compatibility, it will certainly be very difficult for us to recommend this new model.