

Now I'm not saying all A320 motherboards won't work above spec for the memory but I tried two different models and neither worked. I should note that increasing the DRAM voltage didn't help on either board. Here I was unable to post with the 3200 XMP profile enabled and was forced to run at 2933, which did appear to be stable. In fairness to A320 boards, I got my hands on the most expensive Asrock A320 model, the A320M Pro4, which makes little sense at $65 but I wanted to see if memory support was any better.

In fact, 3066 failed and I even ran into a few stability issues at 2933, forcing me down to 2666 and thankfully the system was completely stable here. What's interesting is that while the Asrock A320M lists up to DDR4-3200 memory support via overclocking, I wasn't able to get either Raven Ridge APU working at this speed.
#Msi b350 cpu led ryzen 2400g Pc#
It's also a similar story when looking at the MSI B350 PC Mate.
#Msi b350 cpu led ryzen 2400g plus#
Overclocking aside, you get quite a few extras for that small investment: the audio implementation is much better on the Asrock AB350 Pro4 opposed to the Asrock A320M and you get two extra SATA ports, an extra M.2 port, many more PCIe slots, a decent VRM with passive cooling, as well as more USB 3.0 ports plus USB Gen1 Type-C. If you are upgrading an old system to run on AMD's new platform, you'll need Ryzen 3 2200G ( $100), at least 8GB of DDR4 memory ( $100) and an AM4 motherboard, which pushes the total package to $250 if built with an A320 board and $270 if you used a better B350 model, which works out to be an 8% increase in cost. My personal budget friendly favorites include the Asrock AB350 Pro4 and MSI B350 PC Mate. Those of you willing to spend yet another $20 over a basic A320 board (so $70 total on a motherboard) will have additional breathing room for choosing models that can not only overclock but are well stocked with features including four DIMM slots for flexible memory upgrades in the future. Now, I've always recommended that you shy away from A320 models as they're only $10 to $20 cheaper, but if you never intend to overclock the motherboard, and its resale value isn't something you care about – or the lack of flexible memory upgrades – then buying a $50 A320 board might make sense.įor just $10 more though, you gain the ability to overclock on a B350-based motherboard, and that means boosting both CPU and GPU on the Raven Ridge APUs – again, an impossibility on A320 boards. We've learned most of what there is to know about AMD's new Vega-infused CPUs, but those of you thinking about buying the Ryzen 3 2200G or Ryzen 5 2400G after seeing how it competent it is as a budget gaming platform may be asking yourselves whether the chip would be best installed on an A320 or B350 motherboard.įor budget AM4 builders there's always been a choice between two chipsets: the locked-down A320 with no overclocking support or the B350 that gives users the freedom to send their Ryzen processors rocketing towards 4GHz.
