Gigabyte A520I AC - what am I missing?

[BluesFanUK]

Despite how great the B550I version is, the cost is off putting (for all ITX boards), so i've been eyeing up the Gigabyte A520I board since it was announced. These boards like the A320 are supposed to low, cheap end for APU's/up to Ryzen 5, but this one seems to tick all the right boxes. Weighing up pro's and cons:

• x1 m.2 slot
• x4 SATA ports
• x3 Fan Headers
• x4 USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports
• Zen 3 compatible
  • HDMI 2.1/HDCP 2.3 for Ryzen 4000 APU's
• Solid VRMs (55A DrMoss) - comfortably take a stock 3900x
• PCIe 3.0 lanes from chip-set
• Built in WiFI and Bluetooth connectivity

The sacrifices?

• No PCIe 4.0 (useless anyway)
• Older Audio codec (as above, unless you're a serious audiophile)
• Gigabit Ethernet (Enough for 99.9% of people around the globe)
• BT 4.2/WiFi 5 (Potentially an issue for serious gamers?)

What am I missing? What do the expensive B550/x570 boards have to warrent a £100~ price hike? If it's overclocking then to me personally it's a non-issue as you get minimal gains for huge power/temperature spikes.

Unfortunately the only review I can find for this board online is a foreign one, but from what I could tell it was given high praise.

 

[mickyflinn]

Usually there are more usb ports on the higher chipset and m2 slots, multi gpu support on larger boards and I think you covered the rest.

 

[phiiil]

Buildzoid was similarly impressed with it. I was going to go for one of the B550 boards for an ITX APU system I have planned but I can't think of anything I'd need that this one doesn't provide. I also find it bizarre that every single one of Asus's A520 offerings (and there are 4 or 5) are Micro ATX, not one bigger or smaller board in their whole range.

Does anyone know when this Gigabyte board is likely to be in stock? It's been down as pre-order every time I've checked (which is more than other stores - nowhere else I've looked even has it on their system yet).

 

[orbitalwalsh]

ITX boards are always better designed then their mATX and ATX counterparts. why ram records are sent on them due to Dual DIMM and greater PCB layers.

that board can take a 16 core 3950X easily ! its better then most b450/b550 middle tier boards!

new DrMos mosfets are very good! why giigabyte outfitted them to z490 and b550 range along with ASRock .

@GIGA-Man might know about stock levels

 

[BluesFanUK]

Yeh, it's that good that i'm thinking there's got be something wrong with it.

Given AM4 is a dead platform after Zen 3 is released, i'll likely opt for this mobo, quality board at a reasonable price, especially in the ITX realm.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Yeh, it's that good that i'm thinking there's got be something wrong with it.

Given AM4 is a dead platform after Zen 3 is released, i'll likely opt for this mobo, quality board at a reasonable price, especially in the ITX realm.

It almost got gimped by AMD. Last minute they changed to allow higher ram speeds as intel hot on heels with h410/b460 and allowing Hyper threading on all cores .

Think this one is like 8 layers of PCB so in theory ram speed can be huge with right CPU