Possible MSI A620 Chipset Motherboard Drawing Surfaces

[btarunr]

A PCB drawing of a possible AMD A620 chipset Micro-ATX motherboard by MSI has surfaced. The drawing looks like that of a product designed to be priced well under the $100-mark. The Socket AM5 motherboard draws power from a 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors. A simple 8-phase VRM with LFPAK discrete MOSFETs condition power for the processor, which is wired to two DDR5 DIMM slots, an M.2 NVMe slot (possibly limited to Gen 4 bandwidth, if not Gen 3); and a PCI-Express x16 with Gen 3 bandwidth, if not Gen 4. The only other expansion slot is a PCI-Express 3.0 x1. There are four SATA ports on offer, Display connectivity appears to include HDMI and D-Sub. 6-channel HD audio and a 1 GbE wired network connection make for the rest of it. AMD is expected to begin rolling out cost-effective motherboard based on the A620 later this week.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[tabascosauz]

A simple 8-phase VRM with DPAK discrete MOSFETs condition power for the processor

I can promise you that's a 6-phase Vcore with space for only 1 lo-side per phase. Arguably worse current handling than MSI's own AM4 boards that are 4-phase doubled MOSFETs (B450M Mortar, B450 Tomahawk, B550M-A Pro etc.).

I thought VRMs were supposed to *improve*, not regress. Good doubled 4-phase w/ heatsink is doable but situational and on the edge for even 105W TDP (142W) processors. Take away a theoretical 25% of current handling and where does that land you? And that's assuming MSI keeps using relatively good parts (4C024 and 4C029).

I've been seeing midrange B650 mATX boards on sale at $250cad lately, which isn't all that bad considering decent B550 mATX boards (Mortar, TUF Wifi) started at $200-250 back in 2020. These barrel-scraping A620 boards are just funny.

Also, is that a space for DrMOS on Vmisc?? Really? How hard is it to just make it all DrMOS? Low end Vishays are so cheap, at some point you have to question the value proposition of these not-entry-level 4C029s.

 

[Haile Selassie]

Low end Vishays are so cheap, at some point you have to question the value proposition of these not-entry-level 4C029s.

Bulk availability + high discount on stale inventory is your answer here.

 

[silentbogo]

A simple 8-phase VRM with LFPAK discrete MOSFETs condition power for the processor

It's an entry-level board. 3+1+1 pseudo-doubled(e.g. just in parallel) is the most you'd expect from it.

How hard is it to just make it all DrMOS?

If good-ole pair of mosfets get the job done, why would they? It's an entry level board, and with rising requirements to PCB material, PCIe slots and RAM slots there's zero incentive to spend an extra penny on DrMOS, or spend time on more complex and consequentially more expensive board layout.
Heck, there are even some cheap B550 boards that use the exact same VRM config - just a run of the mill 3+2+1 PWM controller, cheap-o mosfets that they've stockpiled, and bare minimum labor to make it work together. I'm pretty sure they won't add CPUs with TDP over 65W to QVL until most of these will have expired warranty (just like AsRock likes to do)
Yes, it's a crap board, but if the price is right - it still has its place on the market.

 

[ixi]

Too much for lowest chipset. End of the discussion...

 

[tabascosauz]

Bulk availability + high discount on stale inventory is your answer here.

ASRock has been using their favourite SiC63x/65x and equivalent on the vast majority of its boards for like, 3 years. Sometimes at the same price points where MSI is still using 4C029. Gigabyte and Asus also followed suit. Yeah sure, ASRock and MSI have different suppliers and different deals with their suppliers, but the point stands.

It's an entry-level board. 3+1+1 pseudo-doubled(e.g. just in parallel) is the most you'd expect from it.

If good-ole pair of mosfets get the job done, why would they? It's an entry level board, and with rising requirements to PCB material, PCIe slots and RAM slots there's zero incentive to spend an extra penny on DrMOS, or spend time on more complex and consequentially more expensive board layout.
Heck, there are even some cheap B550 boards that use the exact same VRM config - just a run of the mill 3+2+1 PWM controller, cheap-o mosfets that they've stockpiled, and bare minimum labor to make it work together. I'm pretty sure they won't add CPUs with TDP over 65W to QVL until most of these will have expired warranty (just like AsRock likes to do)
Yes, it's a crap board, but if the price is right - it still has its place on the market.

Vmisc didn't even exist on AM4, there's no extra +1. And Vmisc is not a high current rail, it just handles some VDDG and Fabric-related stuff that were formerly subsumed under VSOC on AM4. Its power consumption is in the single digits. If anything, it should have been the rail on discretes.

Not sure where you got the idea; neither ASRock nor MSI is so kind as to keep CPUs off the QVL because the VRM cannot handle their PPT. Literally not a thing for any of the board vendors on AM4 or AM5. If SMU support is there, CPU is on the list. Exact same deal when they list 13900K on unheatsinked LGA1700 boards.

Even ASRock are keeping with the times. Their B650M HDV is a $120 ($140?) board with a liberally heatsinked 8+2+1 with 50A DrMOS. It's pretty optimistic to believe that any of these budget A620 boards will be priced "far" below $100 as stated. Like you just said, DDR5 comes with SMT slots and basically 6-layer is the new 4-layer - so at that point you spend slightly less than a significantly better B650 board?

 

[Ferrum Master]

Your child may present you a drawing.

Tech forum lol...

It is Top Silk Layer, Silkscreen.

 

[Chaitanya]

Here is the product page for single A620 offering from MSI.

PRO A620M-E

PRO series motherboards tuned for better performance by DDR5 memory with Memory Boost, Lightning Gen4 PCIe, USB 3.2 Gen 1, Frozr AI Cooling

www.msi.com