AMD A520, B550, X570 Motherboards — What's the Difference?
A520 Chipset
The youngest of the modern chipsets for the AM4 socket — A520 — was developed not by AMD itself, but by ASMedia, known primarily for its USB controllers. Functionally, the A520 is a cross between the A320 and the B450. On the one hand, the A520 interacts with the processor via the PCI-E 3.0 bus, while the A320 interacts with the slower PCI—E 2.0. On the other, the A520 lacks the ability to overclock the processor and the integrated graphics card (the B450 supports overclocking). But the A520 allows you to install high—frequency RAM – theoretically up to 5000, practically up to 4000 MHz (the B450 is content with 3200 – 3600 MHz).
A natural question arises, why buy A520, if motherboards with B450 are given for the same price? But the A520 still has advantages. Firstly, it is colder, which allows you to do without a massive radiator. Secondly, even low-cost motherboards with A520 are already made taking into account the energy-hungry Ryzen 5000-series prots, therefore they are equipped with numerous power phases. Finally, thirdly, the A520 BIOS has support for all current Ryzen processor families by default: 5000, 4000 and 3000 (the latter only without integrated graphics). Whereas in the case of the B450, most likely, you will need to flash the BIOS using an old processor, which may not be at hand.
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B550 Chipset
The most balanced AMD chipset in terms of price and functionality (also developed in collaboration with ASMedia) is currently the B550. In fact, this is an entrance ticket to the world of high-speed PCI-E 4.0 SSD drives (up to 7000 Mbps) and PCI-E 4.0 video cards (GeForce RTX 3000, Radeon RX 6000). The latter has become especially relevant with the advent of Smart Access Memory technology, which allows Ryzen 5000-series processors to work directly with the memory of video cards, and DirectStorage, which gives direct access to the SSD drive to the graphics card.
The B550 chipset itself does not support the PCI-E 4.0 interface, so the second slot for the graphics card and the second slot for the M.2 SSD work only on PCI-E 3.0. However, CrossFire bundles of video cards and RAID arrays from SSD are not particularly popular now. De jure, the B550 is able to cool passively, without a fan, but de facto it is quite hot, so we still recommend choosing a motherboard with a relatively large radiator.
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X570 Chipset
The oldest 500-series chipset — X570 — remains the most functional to this day (only the TRX40 chipset for Threadripper processors has more features). By the way, this is the only AM4 chipset developed from scratch by AMD itself. Active or at least semi-passive cooling (when the fan rotates only in case of load on the chipset) It is justified, because the X570 is able to work with PCI-E 4.0 graphics cards and SSDs on its own. Simply put, there could be two PCI-E 4.0 x16 and M.2 4.0 x4 slots on the motherboard (the first half is processed by the processor, the second by the chipset). And most importantly, the X570 is the most "omnivorous" 500-series chipset in terms of processor support: Ryzen 2000 (only without integration), 3000 (including integration), 4000, 5000 and even Athlon 3000G.
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ASRock A520M Pro4 is a sufficient motherboard for AMD Ryzen 3000, 4000 or 5000 processors for those who do not plan to overclock (there is simply no overclocking functionality here). There are eight power phases: 6 for CPU cores with a small radiator and 2 for an integrated graphics card and a RAM controller. RAM, by the way, is supported with a frequency up to 4733 MHz.
Razyemov M.2 two pieces are available: the first with pinout Key B&M for SATA3 solid-state drive (600 Mbit/s) or PCI-E 3.0 x4 (32 Gbit/s), and the second Key-E for Wi-Fi adapter. The M.2 disk drive is also equipped with a cooling radiator in case it is not supplied with a specific SSD model.
ASRock A520M Pro4 has a trio of video inputs: analogue VGA and digital HDMI and DisplayPort. The sound subsystem is represented by the Realtek ALC1200 pre-Flagship (by the standards of integrated) codec and the Nahimic software add-in with the Sound Tracker function, displaying a mini-radar of the direction of the enemy's steps on top of the game.
The motherboard does not have its own backlight, but supports the connection of external LED strips, both 12-volt RGB and 5-volt address ARGB (in the second case, you can adjust the colour of each individual LED). If you are not interested in the decor at all, then you can save money by making a choice in favor of ASRock A520M-HVS.
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ASRock B550 Steel Legend is one of the most balanced mid—price motherboards for the AM4 processor socket. It is made in white and decorated with a built-in ARGB backlight, which is synchronized with other PC components via the ASRock Polychrome application. It has an analogue in dark colours — ASRock B550 Extreme4.
The processor power supply chain consists of 14 phases (10 directly to the processor cores and 4 more to the additional components of the chip). All mosfets, without exception, are covered with an aluminium radiator. Also, both M.2 disk slots are equipped with radiators, and the lower one is combined with the chipset radiator.
The upper PCI-E x16 graphics card slot is reinforced with metal to withstand the weight of even the flagship graphics card, and runs on a fast PCI-E 4.0 bus. The same applies to the upper M.2 (up to 64 Gbit/s). The lower M.2 is limited to only two PCI-E 3.0 lines (up to 16 Gbit/s). But installing a second M.2 SSD does not disable half of the SATA3 connectors.
The plug of the rear interface panel is attached directly to the decorative casing — this is a panacea for both forgetfulness during PC assembly and dustiness already in operation. The ASRock B550 Steel Legend audio track combines the top Realtek ALC1220 audio codec and a Texas Instruments headphone amplifier. The network is represented by a 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet and an M.2 Key-E slot for Wi-Fi.
More than a year ago, ASRock released several models of motherboards on the X570 chipset at once and seemed to stop there. But recently its range has been replenished with the new X570 PG Velocita, which in some respects even surpasses the more expensive X570 Taichi. So, the Ethernet controller of the novelty is not a gigabit Intel, but a 2.5-gigabit Killer.
A wireless network adapter to match the wired one is also from the Killer Wi—Fi 6 standard, aka 802.11ax, with a speed of 2.4 Gbit/s. And a pair of external remote antennas (for the 2.4 and 5 GHz frequency bands) is supplied with the motherboard. Bluetooth 5.1 is also provided for connecting, for example, a gamepad.
Both graphics card slots of the ASRock X570 PG Velocita are reinforced, and both disk M.2 are covered with a radiator. Both work on the PCI-E 4.0 bus: part of the data is passed through the processor, part through the chipset (which required cooling by a fan). There are 14 processor power phases, which are covered by a two-section radiator with a copper heat pipe.
In addition to a pair of 10-gigabit USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (one classic Type-A, the second miniature Type-C), of the interesting things on the back panel there is also a BIOS flash button without a processor. Right now it is unlikely to be needed, because the motherboard is fresh and supports all Ryzen chips from 2000 to 5000, but it may come in handy in the future.
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Conclusions
So which motherboard to choose in the end? If you don't have the time and desire to experiment with overclocking, feel free to take the younger A520. Moreover, many AMD processors, especially with the G and X index (the first with a built-in graphics card, the second with factory overclocking to the limit), practically do not lend themselves to additional manual overclocking (at best, it will be possible to squeeze out a hundred and one and a half megahertz). If, on the contrary, you want to get the maximum possibilities, including creating bundles of two Crossfire or NVLink video cards (the new name is SLI), as well as RAID arrays of two M.2 PCI-E 4.0 x4 SSDs (with a total speed of 14 GB/s), then your choice is definitely X570. Connoisseurs of the "golden mean" will like the moderately priced B550 with one graphics card and one disk M.2 with a PCI-E 4.0 connector and the ability to overclock the processor.
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