Just recently AMD launched the cheaper B series motherboards for the current and next gen CPU’s and with a little bit of delay we now have the most budget friendly A series. This right here is ASUS Prime A520M-A mATX motherboard which gets a few benefits over its predecessors while still staying cheap. In this article we will go over the specs, see what comes in the box and talk a bit about the target audience for this board.
Let’s jump straight into it. What do you get with A series? Well, the answer is – not much. While it allows a full compatibility between 2nd and 3rd gen Ryzen, you are limited to running them at stock as there are no overclock options here and you certainly cannot run multiple graphics cards. What you do get is a few faster USB ports over the last gen.
In the box we find the motherboard itself, two SATA cables, m.2 screws, IO shield and manual with chipset CD. As I said earlier – no thrills here.
Looking at the motherboard itself: on the right we have four DIMM slots supporting dual channel DDR4 memory with speeds up to 4800MHz and a total capacity of 128GB.
Below we have one PCIE Gen 3 times 16 slot and two PCIE Gen 3 times 1 slots.
Just above we also have one NVME drive port which supports both PCIE Gen 3 and SATA modes. I like that it is full size so you can fit a large drive without any problems.
With this chipset you can install a maximum of 4 SATA drives, connectors are right at the bottom of the board.
Across the board we have a total of 3 fan headers, two at the top and one towards the middle.
In regards to front USB connectors you can have up to 2 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, that is 5 gigabit version. And 4 USB 2.0 ports.
At the back we have: Combo PS2 Port 6 USB ports, these are both USB 2 and USB 3.2 Gen 1 Gigabit ethernet port For those who may be using APU there is also VGA,DVI and HDMI 2.1 ports And lastly three audio connections.
So, who is this board for? Naturally being a refresh for A320 it can be used as a perfect upgrade path for people who are still using A320 and wanting to keep their costs low while upgrading to Ryzen 3rd gen down the road. Or for someone who is looking to build a budget friendly machine, maybe even use APU to further reduce the costs.
Alternatively it can be great for companies that need their staff to have PCs for general office work. If on the other hand you want to leverage CPU overclocking then you may need to look out for deals on B450 motherboards as those do tend to drop to similar price point and will offer more features. Ultimately this board is made for people who require a no thrills PC and can fit into their budget restrictions.
Affiliate disclosure: as an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases from Amazon.