Editorial AMD's A620 Chipset More Capable Than Early Motherboards Suggest

[LabRat 891]

Not sure the gimping totally 'kills the value', but I would agree: We've only seen variations on "entry-level of the entry-level".
A620 has capabilities similar to X570*, but is being 'built' as basically a cut-down B550.
(*sans OCing and Bifurcation. assumption on the latter)

It almost seems like board partners are trying to not cannibalize their AM4 offerings.
hmmmm:

TBQH, I'm expecting AMD to sell AM4 and AM5 alongside each other for at least 1 full generation. If only to address availability across price segments.
It's not a new idea. I recall s478 and LGA775 being alongside each other, new.
I suppose it happens rather often; at least for a half gen, just from inventory in the logistical pipeline. Heck, I landed a BNIB s370 board and cooler off Newegg, when s939 Opterons and LGA775 Pentium D's were common.

May 11, 2022

 

[Broken Processor]

It's disappointing but expected that they would do this to protect higher end board sales.

 

[Cowboystrekk]

I have mixed feelings about A620. Things I wonder about is if you can run curve optimizer? This will greatly boost allcore speed even if board is limited to 65W .This was possible on several A320 and A520-boards.

Seems many of them will only fit 2 ram slots, that is good in my opinion as it usually is easier to OC\tune ram on 2dimm boards than 4dimm. Also brings down cost and makes it possible to make boards slimmer for small case builds.

7800X3D + 2dimm board + 2x16 Hynix ram clocked to 6400-6600 and tuned + curve optimizer = my goto for a very good budget setup!

 

[TheLostSwede]

In my experience the people who try to make their point by bringing up how long they've been doing something, are usually the ones most unfit for the job they are doing. I've met a lot of such people in real life.

It wasn't about me, it was about the fact that I've been building PCs since the early days of the modern PC and that these new boards are some of the worst I've ever seen. I've tested some utter garbage over the years and these boards belong in that pile.

 

[LabRat 891]

I have mixed feelings about A620. Things I wonder about is if you can run curve optimizer? This will greatly boost allcore speed even if board is limited to 65W .This was possible on several A320 and A520-boards.

Seems many of them will only fit 2 ram slots, that is good in my opinion as it usually is easier to OC\tune ram on 2dimm boards than 4dimm. Also brings down cost and makes it possible to make boards slimmer for small case builds.

7800X3D + 2dimm board + 2x16 Hynix ram clocked to 6400-6600 and tuned + curve optimizer = my goto for a very good budget setup!

Well and good, in concept.
Board partners gimping VRM-sections might lay waste to your value proposal.
You can find threads here on TPU about both 5800X3Ds and AM5 3DVcache not-APUs having power issues related to lightened-duty VRMs on motherboards.

 

[Dragokar]

To be fair, it is also in our hands. Just poke the companys at public accounts that you want product XYZ designed in this way and dont buy what they feed us.

I bet we will see "better" boards with Promontory 22 and this ist just a stop-gap solution. I dont need much more for many client-pcs as a620 can offer, just good build and designed boards.

 

[TheLostSwede]

$165/¥22,000 in Japan for the Gigabyte board.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1642839670127222790

 

[Bomby569]

Motherboard prices are just as stupid as the gpu's, and anyone whitewashing this is a bot or insane.

 

[Tek-Check]

Would you buy this?

The whole point of this article is that the chipset isn't as bad as the motherboard makers have made it appear, as they've done a truly terrible job this time around when it comes to leveraging the available features. Keep in mind that there's no PCIe 5.0 on these boards and only a couple of PCIe 4.0 on most boards, as the board makers decided to go with PCIe 3.0 for the expansion slots, again for no apparent reason, as the chipset can deliver four PCIe 4.0 lanes and the PCIe 3.0 lanes should be used for things like Ethernet and WiFi, that doesn't need more bandwidth.

That MSI board is terrible, indeed. You are right. I checked Asrock's link. This entry board is fine - three M.2, plenty of USB, two display ports, HDMI 2.1 at 32 Gbps which many $500 boards do not have. Fine for this class.
PCIe 5.0 is not needed here at all. No one will miss it. B650 does not have it either.
Asrock used all 24 PCIe 4.0 lanes for GPU and two M.2 slots, so this is fine.
Chipset needs to be PCIe 3.0 and a few lanes and ports less, otherwise there is no difference with B650.
The only thing missing on Asrock's board is USB 10 Gbps. I hope other vendors provide up to two of those.
A620 has more lanes than B550 overall - four additional Gen4 lanes and two Gen3 lanes less. It's fine for ~$100

 

[CosmicWanderer]

$165/¥22,000 in Japan for the Gigabyte board.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1642839670127222790

A wide range of electronics in the UK, Europe, Japan, Australia, and a few other countries all have expensive trade premiums added to them. You can hardly blame the board partners for that.

The AsRock A620 boards are selling for $85 on Newegg US right now. Regardless of how basic you think they are, those are affordable prices.

To be fair the platform is not limited to 65W, the boards can be and probably will be for some models. I also believe we will see ATX version as soon the vendors get the Promontory 22 instead of the 21. For now that are sadly only low effort market segmentation boards.

True. It's not limited to 65W, the wattage support is mentioned in the product name (on Newegg at least).

 

[Bomby569]

The AsRock A620 boards are selling for $85 on Newegg US right now. Regardless of how basic you think they are, those are affordable prices.

that 85$ asrock board (in sale!!!) should be a normal 45 to 50$ at most, it's as barebones as you can get, that's almost a 100% price increase. A bargain

 

[TheLostSwede]

That MSI board is terrible, indeed. You are right. I checked Asrock's link. This entry board is fine - three M.2, plenty of USB, two display ports, HDMI 2.1 at 32 Gbps which many $500 boards do not have. Fine for this class.
PCIe 5.0 is not needed here at all. No one will miss it. B650 does not have it either.
Asrock used all 24 PCIe 4.0 lanes for GPU and two M.2 slots, so this is fine.
Chipset needs to be PCIe 3.0 and a few lanes and ports less, otherwise there is no difference with B650.
The only thing missing on Asrock's board is USB 10 Gbps. I hope other vendors provide up to two of those.
A620 has more lanes than B550 overall - four additional Gen4 lanes and two Gen3 lanes less. It's fine for ~$100

The MSI board is the worst of the lot, but ASRock has done a weird board with no expansion slots, although in fairness, it's still possible to add a WiFi card if needed via the third M.2 slot.
I'm just expecting those boards to be around $150, based on as you can see above, their entry level models being $86 and $100, which makes the higher-end models meh.
At least ASRock didn't skimp on the VRM on its higher-end boards, but the entry level model is 4+1+1 design which just shouldn't be fitted on a motherboard in 2023.

Note that the PCIe 3.0 and SATA ports are shared, so that's something that limits any board that uses SATA, unless you add a third party chipset, which adds cost.

The AsRock A620 boards are selling for $85 on Newegg US right now. Regardless of how basic you think they are, those are affordable prices.

That's the only boards that have been listed for sale in the US so far and AMD even went out with that $86 price as their headline from pricing, which is for a board that I would recommend everyone and their dog to steer clear of.
Find the US pricing for the Asus boards and we can start talking about what is what, as they'll be $150+.

 

[CosmicWanderer]

Different products have different tiers, at different price points, for different target audiences.

Compare the A620 and the Intel H610, which is the cheapest chipset that supports Intel 13th gen. From AsRock:
AsRock H610M
AsRock A620M

They both sell for almost the same price ($80 Intel vs $86 AMD). For $6 more, the AMD board gets you faster DDR5, 2 NVMe slots vs 0 on the Intel, more fast IO ports, an M.2 Wi-Fi slot, slightly better VRM, and future upgradability because we all know Intel 14th gen won't be supported on H610.

Look, I know this is an editorial, but it doesn't make any sense to me.

It's like complaining that a baseline Toyota Corolla doesn't have all the options that a Toyota Corolla can be spec'ed with. And that it's sold more expensive in Singapore vs the USA.

 

[Bomby569]

Different products have different tiers, at different price points, for different target audiences.

Compare the A620 and the Intel H610, which is the cheapest chipset that supports Intel 13th gen. From AsRock:
AsRock H610M
AsRock A620M

They both sell for almost the same price ($80 Intel vs $86 AMD). For $6 more, the AMD board gets you faster DDR5, 2 NVMe slots vs 0 on the Intel, more fast IO ports, an M.2 Wi-Fi slot, slightly better VRM, and future upgradability because we all know Intel 14th gen won't be supported on H610.

Look, I know this is an editorial, but it doesn't make any sense to me.

It's like complaining that a baseline Toyota Corolla doesn't have all the options that a Toyota Corolla can be spec'ed with. And that it's sold more expensive in Singapore vs the USA.

Intel boards pricing is just as stupid. The "editorial" is not a AMD vs Intel, no one said Intel is better. Why make this a Intel vs AMD?

I do get things are more expensive and probably complexity increased too, but come on it's unaceptable to me a 100% price increases in such a small time period. Motherboards and GPU's are on a special class of inflation, it's more like Venezuela style of inflation.

 

[CosmicWanderer]

Intel boards pricing is just as stupid. The "editorial" is not a AMD vs Intel, no one said Intel is better. Why make this a Intel vs AMD?

I do get things are more expensive and probably complexity increased too, but come on it's unaceptable to me a 100% price increases in such a small time period. Motherboards and GPU's are on a special class of inflation, it's more like Venezuela style of inflation.

You could make the same comparison with A620 vs A520, and yet again, the same comparison with A620 from one company vs A620 from another company.

The point was that you should have VERY low expectations for these bottom tier products, and that even at the lowest tier, you're still getting a better product year-over-year for roughly the same price as before (in the US) - trade price hikes in certain countries are not the board makers fault - blame the governments and their ridiculous import trade policies.

 

[Bomby569]

You could make the same comparison with A620 vs A520, and yet again, the same comparison with A620 from one company vs A620 from another company.

The point was that you should have VERY low expectations for these bottom tier products, and that even at the lowest tier, you're still getting a better product year-over-year for roughly the same price as before (in the US) - trade price hikes in certain countries are not the board makers fault - blame the governments and their ridiculous import trade policies.

i'm also getting a better ssd, a better cpu, ram, etc... year over year and yet we don't see prices doubling. In most cases they are roughly the same or even cheaper.

 

[CosmicWanderer]

i'm also getting a better ssd, a better cpu, ram, etc... year over year and yet we don't see prices doubling. In most cases they are roughly the same or even cheaper.

Where is the price doubling? A520 launched back in 2020 at roughly the same $75-$100 price range as A620.

Like I said, if A620 prices are doubling in a specific country compared to other countries then that's a different story.

 

[Chrispy_]

AMD need to throw some more weight around here; AM5 has no reason to be dogshit AND expensive. Either is normal, but both is unacceptable.
Perhaps its intentional sabotage of A620 by board vendors because they don't want to undermine their strong B550 sales.

AM4 is currently serving the budget builds; There are many decent sub-$100 B550 boards that will support a (stock) 5950X without any problems. Sure, a PBO limit of just 150W on a bargain-basement board like the GA-B550-DS3H isn't exactly an overclocker's dream, but it'll support the processor just fine with no other compromises and has all of the expected features, given the chipset and amount of physical space on tap.

I hate to say it, because it's TWO generations old at this point, but Rocket Lake is still good. It's cheaper than an A620 and honestly the price/performance of 11th-Gen i5 is still great. Depending on what performance tier you're after it can be better than AM4. Intel's mid-range Raptor Lake i5s are almost good enough to overlook the more expensive LGA 1700 platform, provided you're running W11 - 16 threads for $225, and 6P cores with high clocks and AM5-rivalling IPC? It's enough to make B620 look bad even before you factor in the phoned-in board designs.

 

[Frode Bergeton Nilsen]

Great to see that AMD allows to axe SATA ports completely. Way to go AMD! Now we need that push to get rid of that MB USB3.0 header. It is a horror show and needs to go. We need a push for 2 times USB-C.

Not sure how the future looks, but 12VO and PCIE5 will force some change. Both in real estate and layers of the boards.

As is, the A620 boards are just fine. Apart from the lack of m.2 for WLAN on some, they got what people need, and then some. Like SATA ports or expansion slots.

 

[Bomby569]

Where is the price doubling? A520 launched back in 2020 at roughly the same $75-$100 price range as A620.

Like I said, if A620 prices are doubling in a specific country compared to other countries then that's a different story.

A520 already had the crazy tax, go a bit further back. I don't know where i can confirm this, but a similar bare bones A320 for example, unless you wanted some rgb ROG one.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

Hmm, ASRock 620 PCIe 5 SSD?

 

[TheLostSwede]

Hmm, ASRock 620 PCIe 5 SSD?

Expect that to be gimped in the next AGESA release.
Most likely just an oversight from AMD's side.

 

[CosmicWanderer]

Great to see that AMD allows to axe SATA ports completely. Way to go AMD! Now we need that push to get rid of that MB USB3.0 header. It is a horror show and needs to go. We need a push for 2 times USB-C.

Not sure how the future looks, but 12VO and PCIE5 will force some change. Both in real estate and layers of the boards.

As is, the A620 boards are just fine. Apart from the lack of m.2 for WLAN on some, they got what people need, and then some. Like SATA ports or expansion slots.

That USB3.0 header is truly horrible.

I'm actually hoping for a full revamp of PC power delivery one day. One connector from the PSU to the motherboard and that's it. Everything else is fully powered via the motherboard: CPU via the socket and GPU via PCIe slot. SATA is dead.

Motherboards will probably have to triple in price to accommodate all the extra current and necessary shielding, but hey, easier cable management.

 

[Bomby569]

People that buy this kind of mobos are really going to buy a gen 5 ssd?

 

[TumbleGeorge]

People that buy this kind of mobos are really going to buy a gen 5 ssd?

Why not? Prices will be more common after few time.