Another entry-level & sub-$50 A320 motherboard has been demonstrated to run AMD's flagship Ryzen 9 5950X CPU perfectly. This demonstration showcases that even these entry-tier designs are able to support the majority of Ryzen 5000 CPUs without any issues if AMD ends their restrictions that have been imposed on motherboard makers for some time now.
MSI's $45 A320 Motherboard Runs The AMD Ryzen 9 5950X CPU Perfectly & Even Allows Over 5 GHz Boost Clocks
TechEpiphany has once again demonstrated how the most entry-level motherboards can run the top of the stack AMD Zen 3 CPUs without issues. A few weeks ago, we saw him running the 5950X on a $60 US A320 motherboard. This time, he decided to take things one step ahead by running the same chip on a $45 US A320 motherboard.
https://twitter.com/TechEpiphany/status/1483198196264361985
The motherboard in question is the MSI A320M-A PRO which features a standard mATX design with 5-phase power delivery, just two DIMM slots, no heatsinks to cover the VRMs & power delivered through a single 4-pin connector. Most users will be worried if the board is even going to run a 16 core chip but in the demonstration, the motherboard can be seen, not only running the AMD chip really well but also boosting it up to 5.15 GHz, pretty unexpected of a heatsink-less motherboard.
As for making sure the VRMs didn't blow up during the test, TechEpiphany reports that he was able to touch the VRMs with his bare hands during load. They mostly remained cool but did get hot after a while though it was nothing out of the motherboard's spec.
Went out to get the cheapest mainboard I could find. VRMs stayed pretty cool during load. Could touch during full load, not too long tho, got hot. But all in specs. ST & MT perf are high. MT frequencies less consistent but on a high level. Ryzen CPUs are very efficient and therefore are ok with most low end boards, despite Premium Board Marketing. I recorded it raw to show it was stable. Will let it run for a week now
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5950X (B2 Stepping)
- Cooler: Wraith Spire. Top-down blower cooler is important.
- Official MSI BIOS: 7C51v162(Beta version)
This video proves that there is a whole range of motherboards featuring the AMD B350 & X370 chipset out there that can do the same & better thanks to their higher-quality VRM and cooling design. Now while users have found a way to bypass this restriction through Bootleg, it is still an unofficial and more dangerous route to go as installing the incorrect BIOS version on your motherboard can simply brick it as most of these boards lack a dual BIOS chip. So we will ask all of you to avoid that unless you (possibly) want to kill off your old and trusted 300-series partner.
Hopefully, the demos such as these will prove to AMD that their older 300-series boards are still a very capable platform for budget builders who want to upgrade to their latest processors and don't want to upgrade till the next-generation launches later this year. If Ryzen 5000 support does come sooner then these users might just stick to their current PCs for another year by upgrading to a Ryzen 5000 or Ryzen 5000G chip. This would mean that AMD can maintain its market share and not give it away to Intel before AM5 launches. Overall, we expect AMD to make a decision that's in the interest of its consumer base.
