Computer

GIGABYTE Breaks AMD Rules: Ryzen 5000 CPUs on A320 Boards

It’s always good when hardware manufacturers don’t forget about their old models, as is the case at hand, as GIGABYTE has updated their motherboard firmware with AMD A320 chipset to support the 4000 and 5000 ranges of AMD Ryzen. Let’s see what are the details to update these boards and how the company dodges the bullet and warning from AMD.

AMD’s A320 chipset was not intended for the enthusiast market, but was designed for low-end computers, however despite using the same socket, AM4, it is not possible to upgrade to an AMD Ryzen 4000 or 5000 APU or CPU, a update that would suit computer users with such motherboards very well.

If we do memory we will remember that these are motherboards with a mATX form factor without any type of heat sink and therefore it is recommended for AMD Ryzen CPUs whose model number does not end with an X, that is, intended for range processors come down. However, due to their price below 100 euros, users with a lower budget chose them to mount low-mid-range gaming configurations with Zen 2 architecture processors.

GIGABYTE A320 with Ryzen 4000 and 5000 support

motherboards

GIGABYTE’s new firmware for motherboards with the A320 chipset unlocks support for Ryzen 4000 processors, which are APUs with Zen 2 cores, and Ryzen 5000 CPUs, based on Zen 3. Let’s not forget that although AMD in all their Zen ranges have so far made the same socket serve for their desktop processors, older chipsets do not support the latest generation of processors.

Specifically, there have been two GIGABYTE motherboards that have received the update: GA-A320M-H and GA-A320M-S2H. Of each of them, the manufacturer released three revisions to the market and for the six in total they have released updated firmware, whose links we leave you below.

Not all that glitters is gold

Although the GIGABYTE A320 firmware update supports CPUs as powerful as the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, we must bear in mind that it is not intended for the high-end processors of the different AMD Ryzen families, since that the analog circuitry does not provide enough power for the PDN of the processor. So if you are users of GIGABYTE A320 motherboards and want to upgrade your CPUs to Ryzen 5000, a good option is to opt for a 5600X or a 5800X at most.

The other point to consider is the RAM, the performance of all Zen architectures depends a lot on the speed of the DDR4 and the new firmware does not allow to take advantage of memory modules much faster than before. This is a clear bottleneck in order to get the most out of a Ryzen 4000, but especially a Ryzen 5000, so the performance you will get will be less than with a motherboard change, at least in certain tasks.

In any case, it is appreciated that GIGABYTE A320 motherboards receive this firmware update to be able to update the processor and thus bypass the restrictive AMD policies.

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