Report: AMD A520 Budget Motherboards Landing in September

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Wake me up when September starts.

(Image credit: Alberto Garcia Guillen/Shutterstock)

DigiTimes has reason to believe that AMD's extra budget-oriented A520 motherboards will launch in September. The time frame coincides with the date the Ryzen 4000-series (codename Vermeer) Zen 3 desktop CPUs are rumored to arrive. 

ASMedia has benefited greatly over the years from manufacturing AMD's chipsets. Sources close to DigiTimes claimed that ASMedia expects its profits to skyrocket in Q2 and the year on a whole, as AMD will reveal its next-generation platform in the upcoming months. Apparently, AMD has even put in orders for the new 600-series chipset with ASMedia.

The B550 chipset comes with limited PCIe 4.0 functionality. With the lack of information available, it's hard to guess whether the A520 chipset will follow in the B550's footsteps. A520-based motherboards will reportedly be the lowest-priced budget boards, so PCIe 4.0 support is hard to imagine. (Of course, we'd love for AMD to prove us wrong.) 

Back in April, DigiTimes pegged Vermeer's release date for September. The latest report suggests a broader timeline, with a launch either at the end of Q3 or early Q4. 

AMD originally planned on bringing Zen 3 support to B550 and X570 motherboards only. It changed its tune after a pitchforked-armed group of AMD enthusiasts managed to convince the chipmaker to backpedal on its plot and broaden support to the B450 and X470 motherboards. Although AMD has kept a tight lip on A520, there's grounds to believe the chipset would support Zen 3 as well -- and this time without the furious uproar.

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Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • InvalidError
    I hope the B650 won't launch as stupidly far behind Zen 3 as the remainder of the 500-series did behind Zen 2.
    Reply
  • MasterMadBones
    InvalidError said:
    I hope the B650 won't launch as stupidly far behind Zen 3 as the remainder of the 500-series did behind Zen 2.
    My guess is B650 won't launch at all, considering how AMD is handling CPU compatibility with B550.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    MasterMadBones said:
    My guess is B650 won't launch at all, considering how AMD is handling CPU compatibility with B550.
    Unless AMD put Zen 3 support in launch-day 520/550 BIOS or made flash-back mandatory, 620/650 boa4ds will be needed to clearly delineate boards with out-of-box support. The 600s could even be nothing more than a re-brand for that single specific purpose.
    Reply
  • Olle P
    InvalidError said:
    Unless AMD put Zen 3 support in launch-day 520/550 BIOS ...
    For which there's no indication that they won't...
    I really do expect all current 500-series boards to have Zen 3 compatible BIOS available when the CPUs are launched. (Just like the vast majority of 400-series boards had Zen 2 compatible BIOS available at the Matisse launch.)

    The A520s (and possibly also B550s) should have compatible BIOS installed from the start, and be a perfect companion to any 3rd/4th gen Ryzen 3 or 4th gen Ryzen APU.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    Olle P said:
    I really do expect all current 500-series boards to have Zen 3 compatible BIOS available when the CPUs are launched. (Just like the vast majority of 400-series boards had Zen 2 compatible BIOS available at the Matisse launch.)
    I was writing about having Zen 3 support (at least enough of it for the boards to be capable of self-updating from USB) right off the B550/A520's launch, not Zen 3's launch. Adding support later on would be of little use for the million(s) of boards sitting in warehouses around the world, going to be a PITA for people who don't have a stash of older-gen chips.
    Reply
  • tiggers97
    I spotted this from another Digitimes article referencing the 600 series chipsets from AMD/ASMedia
    "ASMedia is the manufacturer of AMD's B550 and A520 chipsets, which are set to launch in June and September 2020, respectively, the sources said. AMD's Ryzen 4000 series CPUs are scheduled to become available at the end of the third quarter or early fourth-quarter 2020, supporting only B550 and X570 chipsets. ASMedia has also recently landed orders from AMD for its 600 series chipsets that is scheduled for the end of 2020, the sources said. "


    Around Dec2019/Jan2020 is the last I've heard anything about the x670 chipset. Is there anything new about it? Will it just be x570+? I'm considering waiting for x670 or B550 when the Zen 3 comes out.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    tiggers97 said:
    Around Dec2019/Jan2020 is the last I've heard anything about the x670 chipset. Is there anything new about it? Will it just be x570+? I'm considering waiting for x670 or B550 when the Zen 3 comes out.
    The x570 could use a power efficiency boost, so that is at least one thing x670 could improve on. For b650, the two obvious improvements would be PCIe4 uplink and 2-4 extra flex-IO lanes to give board manufacturers enough IOs to work with to fill an ATX board.
    Reply
  • hannibal
    570 was made using zen IO chip, so this may be purely for motherboard sophistigated versio. So about same features, but smaller chip and Little bit less electricity usage. Maybe some usb port upgrades, but mainly very Little changes. Am5 will be the big update next. Wery few thing has changed in one year. Most likely OEM manufacturers just need bigger Numbers for christmast sales!
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    InvalidError said:
    I hope the B650 won't launch as stupidly far behind Zen 3 as the remainder of the 500-series did behind Zen 2.
    You shouldn't expect B650 boards anytime soon. B550 should be releasing not too long before the Zen 3 processors make their debut, so it will most likely be the mid-range chipset for the 4000-series. It's unlikely manufacturers would design 60+ B550 boards if they expected to be replacing them with B650 models around the end of the year. B450 launched over a year after B350, B550 is launching nearly two years after B450, and I would similarly expect B550 to remain the current generation of mid-range boards for at least a year.

    The only way B650 might make sense within the next year is if it were just a rebrand of B550 with out-of-box support for Zen 3 processors, but considering they didn't do that for B550, and how relatively close they likely are to launching Zen 3, B550 boards might already have support for those upcoming processors, or at least may be able to be updated to support them without the need for another CPU. It wouldn't really make much sense to release motherboards for processors that came out a year prior unless they were intended more for the next generation of processors.
    Reply
  • TechLurker
    InvalidError said:
    I hope the B650 won't launch as stupidly far behind Zen 3 as the remainder of the 500-series did behind Zen 2.

    550/520 were delayed due to ASMedia not being able to produce PCIe 4.0 chipsets on time right? I could see X670 releasing, if only to serve as a quick "refresh" 1:1 replacement of X570 motherboards, now using ASMedia chips instead of AMD's modified I/O chip (and thus removing the need for active chipset cooling, even if it was never a real issue), along with any minor updates such as HDMI 2.1/DP 1.4 or such.

    An OEM-only "B650M" might be likely, for the same reasons that B550M was a thing; just to give OEMs something "newish" to advertise. But given that B550 and A520 are releasing this late, and B550 incorporating some newer stuff over the X570s (such as HDMI 2.1 on one or two high-end B550 Mobos), there isn't much need for a "refresh" of B550/A520 compared to X570. X670 makes sense insofar as being the final, pinnacle chipset and mobo series for AM4.
    Reply