A new budget-centric chipset has been announced by AMD to complement it’s Zen-2 based Ryzen 3000 and upcoming Ryzen 4000 (and beyond) processors. As with the previous chipset with the x20 monicker, this is aimed for budget-friendly builds who don’t need that much motherboard features.
The A520 offers 26 PCI-E 3.0 lanes when paired with a Ryzen 3000 processor with 20 lanes coming off the CPU. Since this is a budget-centric line, PCI-E 4.0 is not included which will push you to get the B550 instead or higher.
The configuration of the components are as follows:
- CPU
- x4 PCIe 3.0 NVMe
- x2 PCIe 3.0 NVMe + 2 x SATA
- x2 PCIe 3.0 NVMe + x2 PCIe 3.0 NVMe
- Chipset
- 4x PCIe 3.0 + 2x PCIe 3.0
- 4x PCIe 3.0 + 2 SATA
The remaining PCIe lanes from the CPU, as always, are divided between a full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, and a PCIe 3.0 x4 link between the CPU and the chipset.
In terms of USB support, the A520 will support up to four USB 3.2 G2 ports from the CPU and the chipset will support an additional USB 3.2 G2 port, two USB 3.2 G1 ports, and six USB 2.0 ports.
Processor Compatibility:
| AMD AM4 Motherboard Support | |||||||
| AnandTech | uArch | A320 | B350 X370 |
B450 X470 |
X570 | B550 |
A520 |
| Ryzen 4000 CPU | Zen 3 | X | X | Beta | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Ryzen 4000 APU** | Zen 2 | X | ?Beta | ? ✓ | ? ✓ | ? ✓ | ? ✓ |
| Ryzen 3000 CPU | Zen 2 | X | Beta | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Ryzen 3000 APU | Zen+ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | X | X |
| Ryzen 2000 CPU | Zen+ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | X | X |
| Ryzen 2000 APU | Zen | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | X | X | X |
| Ryzen 1000 CPU | Zen | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | X | X | X |
| Athlon A-Series | * | ✓ | X | ✓ | X | X | X |
| Ryzen Pro CPUs follow their non-Pro equivalents * Excavator or Carrizo ** Unknown – product not announced yet |
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