“The A520 AORUS ELITE occupies the high-end of A520 based motherboards, yet is still affordable. I picked this one up for a mere $89.99, a relative steal in comparison to most B550 motherboards, and still cost effective over B450 boards carrying a $30-40+ premium. Yes, it gives up overclocking support of the processor. If you’re looking to overclock your CPU, A520 is not the place to be. However, that doesn’t mean you’re entirely limited to stock performance.”
AMD’s A520 chipset occupies what could be seen as a crowded space. Now that Ryzen 5000 series CPUs are supported on the 400-Series chipsets, is there really room for the A520? Most would simply look at it and say, no, B450 boards only cost a bit more and you have the overclocking support. It’s a no brainer. Or, is it? After all, if you’re using your rig for work as well as play, do you really need cost up features like 2.5GbE? What about integrated Wi-Fi if you’re parked near your modem or router? Are you one to shy away from overclocking to retain that warranty, or simply don’t want to invest in an expensive cooler? These factors and more make A520, especially the “premium” A520 boards, more enticing.
Today, we have a quick preview of an enthusiast level A520 motherboard, the GIGABYTE A520 AORUS ELITE.
The main things separating A520 boards from their more expensive B550 and X570 siblings are the use of cost-saving auxiliary controllers and circuitry, along with the use of lower quality power delivery systems. Many boards lack VRM heatsinks meaning they should not be used with the higher core count CPUs.
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