AM4 motherboards A dozen A520 models named by ASRock

AM4 Motherboards

The B550 motherboards are not yet on the market, as there are more hints about motherboards with the A520 chipset as a new entry-level chip from AMD. A dozen different A520 models from Asrock are listed in the EEC online database.

Asrock Motherboard AM4

The website of the Eurasian Economic 
Commission (EEC) repeatedly provides references to products whose names are registered there before market launch. Some of these are just placeholders, but very often also specifically planned products.

The entries about the manufacturer Asrock discovered by Twitter user @momomo_us contain not only names of various B550 motherboards but also the A520 motherboards not yet presented.

The following models or revisions are at least envisaged:

• A520M Pro4
• A520M Pro4 R2.0
• A520M Pro4 R3.0
• A520M-HDVP
• A520M-HDV
• A520M-HDV R2.0
• A520M-HDV R3.0
• A520M-HVS
• A520M-HVS R2.0
• A520M-HVS R3.0
• A520M-ITX/ac
• A520M/ac

The "M" behind the name of the chipset should indicate the micro-ATX form factor, at least this is the case with Asrock so far. That all variants except for one ITX model use this form factor would not be so unusual, because the predecessors with A320 chipset also rely on Micro-ATX at Asrock.

Five A520 models at Asus

Names of the first A520 motherboards were discovered a month ago. The manufacturer Asus had probably accidentally named five models on support pages, which according to the nomenclature also use the Micro-ATX form factor:

• PRIME A520M-A
• PRIME A520M-E
• PRIME A520M-K
• TUF GAMING A520M-A
• TUF GAMING A520M-PLUS

A520 motherboards are also to be expected from Biostar, MSI and Gigabyte.

The A520 does not support Pcie 4.0

The A520 chipset is the successor to the A320 on the AM4 platform from AMD as an entry-level model, an A420" did not exist. Compared to the flagship X570 and the forthcoming mainstream model B550, the equipment is significantly lower. A significant difference is the lack of support for PCI Express 4.0, which is available on B550 boards via Ryzen CPU and is also natively embedded in the X570 chipset.

To the best of our knowledge, the A520 provides up to six Pcie 3.0 lanes, four SATA ports and nine USB ports, of which only one operates according to USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbit/s). Compared to the A320, Pcie 3.0 is the biggest innovation, as it only delivers Pcie 2.0 four times.

Date for market launch still uncertain

However, it is not yet known when the A520 motherboards will reach retail. What is clear is that the market launch will take place later than the B550 counterparts, which are to be available from 16 June. The A520 is expected in late summer.