It’s always good when hardware manufacturers don’t forget about their older models, as is the case here, since GIGABYTE has updated their motherboard firmware with AMD A320 chipset to support AMD Ryzen 4000 and 5000 series. Let’s see what the details are to update these cards and how the company dodges the bullet and AMD’s warning.
The AMD A320 chipset was not intended for the hobbyist market, but was designed for low-end computers, but despite using the same socket, AM4, it is not possible to upgrade them to an APU or an AMD Ryzen 4000 or 5000 processor, an update that would work fine for users of computers with such motherboards.
If we do memory, we will remember that these are motherboards with a mATX form factor without any type of heat sink and therefore are recommended for AMD Ryzen processors whose model number does not match. not end with an X, that is to say intended for range processors. . However, due to their price tag of less than $ 100, users on a lower budget chose them to ride low-to-mid-range gaming setups with Zen 2 architecture processors.
The GIGABYTE A320 with Ryzen 4000 and 5000 support
GIGABYTE’s new firmware for motherboards with A320 chipset unlocks support for Ryzen 4000 processors, which are APUs with Zen 2 cores, and Ryzen 5000 processors, based on Zen 3. Let’s not forget that although ‘AMD in all of their Zen lines has 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 received the update: GA-A320M-H and GA-A320M-S2H. For each of them, the manufacturer has released three revisions to the market, and for the six in total, it has released updated firmware, the links of which we leave below.
All that glitters is not gold
Although the GIGABYTE A320 firmware update supports CPUs as powerful as the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, it should be borne in mind that it is not intended for high-end processors of the various AMD families. Ryzen, since the analog circuitry does not provide enough power for the processor PDN. So if you are GIGABYTE A320 motherboard user and want to upgrade your processors to Ryzen 5000, a good option is to go for a 5600X or a 5800X to the maximum.
The other point to consider is the RAM, the performance of all Zen architectures depends a lot on the speed of DDR4 and the new firmware does not allow to take advantage of memory modules much faster than before. This is an obvious bottleneck in getting the most out of a Ryzen 4000, but especially a Ryzen 5000, so the performance you will get will be less than with a change of motherboard, 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 AMD restrictive policies.
