Gigabyte's Low-Cost Mini-ITX A620 Motherboard Supports Ryzen R9 7950X, R9 7950X3D CPUs
by Anton Shilov on June 22, 2023 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- Gigabyte
- AM5
- Ryzen 7000
- AMD A620
- A620
Gigabyte has quietly introduced one of the industry's first inexpensive motherboards for AMD's AM5 processors in Mini-ITX form-factor. The most unexpected peculiarity of Gigabyte's A620I AX motherboard — based on AMD's low-cost A620 chipset that only supports essential features — is that it supports AMD's top-of-the-range Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Ryzen 9 7950X processors.
Despite its positioning as an entry-level motherboard for AMD's Ryzen 7000-series CPUs based on the Zen 4 microarchitecture, Gigabyte's Ultra Durable A620I-AX can handle all of AMD's AM5 CPUs released to date, including relatively inexpensive Ryzen 5 7600 with a 65W TDP as well as range-topping Ryzen 9 7950X3D with 3D V-Cache rated for 120W and Ryzen 9 7950X rated for 170W. Given that AMD's A620 platform is not meant for overclocking, the Ryzen 9 7950X cannot be overclocked on this motherboard, but even support of this CPU is unexpected.
AMD's Ryzen 7000-series CPUs are hungry for memory bandwidth and the UD A620I-AX does not disappoint here as it comes with two slots for DDR5 memory that officially support memory modules rated for up to DDR5-6400 and with EXPO profiles. High-performance DDR5 DIMMs will be beneficial not only for Ryzen 9 and Ryzen 7 CPUs aimed at demanding gamers, but will also be beneficial for cheap PCs running AMD's upcoming AM5 APUs with built-in graphics as memory bandwidth is crucial for integrated GPUs. The motherboard even has two display outputs to support iGPUs.
Speaking of gaming, the UD A620I-AX motherboard naturally lacks any kind of PCIe Gen5 support, but it does have a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot for graphics cards and an M.2-2280 slot with a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface for SSDs. For those who need additional storage space, the platform has two SATA ports.
As for overall connectivity, the UD A620I-AX motherboard features a Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth adapter, an 2.5GbE port, USB 3.2 Gen1/2 ports (including a Type-C port), and audio connectors. While this may not seem much, entry level gaming systems do not use a lot of high-performance peripherals anyway. Furthermore, AMD's A620 platform does not support USB4.
Pricing details for the UD A620I-AX are not yet available, but some early reports suggest that it will be priced below/around $100, like other A620-based offerings. Meanwhile, given support for high-end Ryzen 9 processors and Mini-ITX form-factor, it is possible that Gigabyte may charge a premium for the UD A620I-AX. Therefore, it remains to be seen how reasonably priced will this motherboard be when it hits the market.
Source: Gigabyte
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meacupla - Thursday, June 22, 2023 - link
All it really needs to do, is be capable of handling a 7800X3D while it's boosting. If it can do that, then it would be a top choice for gaming ITX builds.Samus - Thursday, June 22, 2023 - link
Sadly I had to give up on one of my ITX cases (the wonderful Silverstone FT03-mini) because, unfortunately, modern CPU's draw so much power they can't effectively be cooled in a tiny footprint. Even with a CLC rocking a monster-thick 120x38mm radiator it's extremely difficult to exhaust more than 120w of heat. And the lack of blower-style GPU coolers leaves another angle of cooling issues as that heat will be exhausted into the case unless you have one that segments the PCIe section of the motherboard, which no ITX cases seemed to do until recently. I am testing a fractal terra graphite and while its a substantial improvement over the FT03-mini's cooling, it sacrifices so much, lacking a 3.5" bay, an micro-optical drive slot, and unsurprisingly, it's larger.FWhitTrampoline - Friday, June 23, 2023 - link
The InWin Chopin Max(Latest iteration of the InWin Chopin series) only supports a 200W internal Power supply. And even though the InWin Chopin series supports Mini-ITX MBs the Chopin's form factor there is too small to accommodate any discrete GPU. So for any InWin Chopin build this MB will be a good fit for any 65 Watt Ryzen G series/AM5 Desktop APU! But AMD's really been pulling back supporting any yearly Ryzen G series Desktop APU update cadence since Ryzen 4000G was released and Ryzen 4000G was made OEM Only for almost 2 years until Ryzen 5000G was released. And Rayen 5000G was OEM Only for its first 3 months of release and only available for DIY System Builders after that 3 month OEM exclusivity period expired.Currently for the Desktop APU/SOC DIY market(InWin Chopin or ASRock Desk Mini) very small form factor system builds that's only possible for Ryzen 5000G/AM4 or some Intel 96EU iGPU Socket based variants. And I do not think that AMD will offer any Ryzen 7000G unless Intel releases 1 or 2 Meteor Lake Socket Packaged SKUs for the Same InWin Chopin/ASRock Desk Mini DIY market where iGPUs are required because the form factor there is too small to accommodate any dGPUs.
And even though the Rumors state that Meteor Lake will only be Mobile processor based Intel's well able to socket package any mobile processor variants as as I'm still using an HP Probook Laptop that's got an Ivy Bridge generation Core i7 3632QM Socket Packaged processor that Intel made for HP's workhorse business laptops at that time. But AMD's got little motivation to go beyond Ryzen 5000G Desktop APUs on the AM4 platform as that Vega 8CU iGPU competes well against Intel's current 96EU iGPUs on Desktop/Socket based processors.
GreenReaper - Friday, June 23, 2023 - link
I have a Chopin Max with a 7600 on a B650E-I - it's a fun and sturdy little system overclocked (102Mhz base, +200 CPU to 5457MHz single-core, 2800 MHz GFX, 2074 IF, 5600->5904 MT/s) and mostly undervolted (-28 -27 -28 -43 -33 -32 CPU CO, +8 GFX CO, 1.17 VDDC).But you're right, it's nigh-impossible to cool. I ended up with an NH-L9a-AM5 with NA-FD1 fan duct and an Arctic 25mm fan blowing into it through the mesh. It peaked at 127.5W package power, but maximum sustained is ~20W below that. (Still ~20W better than the stock cooler.) I know the Noctua can do more, too; it's just hamstrung by one CCD and relatively limited use of the IO die.
The issue, of course, is the 2 CU IGP. I'm 'fine' playing Star Wars at 15FPS in 1600x900 (hey, I got through the main campaign) but I hope at some point AM5 will have a good APU so I can make full use of my power budget for something other than BOINC. You can do a lot with 200W nowadays!
Lucky Stripes 99 - Friday, June 23, 2023 - link
First thing I did with my InWin Chopin was to remove the noisy stock PSU and replace it with a 300W DC-DC ATX supply fed by a 220W laptop AC-DC supply (Dell DA2). Not only is the system a bit cooler, but it is nearly inaudible under normal loads.While 220W is enough to feed my 4600G APU, I have been looking at some of the higher power GaN laptop supplies hitting the market, some of which are rated up to 500W. Those would be more than enough to feed a 65W CPU and a modest discrete GPU in a larger ITX case. You could then rig up a fan where the original supply went to help with cooling.
FWhitTrampoline - Saturday, June 24, 2023 - link
HDPlex has a 250W GaN power supply that can be daisy chained for 2 of those and at 500W total power. And just one of those 250W GaN power supplies takes up about a third of the space of the InWin Chopin's(Pro or Max edition) 200W standard power supply. And I have seen a few case modders out there get some very small form factor dGPUs to fit with some minimal cutting and grinding there with some ribbon cable extension and creative cable routing.But Really the InWin Chopin, and ASRock Desk Mini, systems are meant to be used with Socket Packaged G series Desktop APUs from AMD or Intel's Socket packaged SOCs with more powerful IGPUs. And I think that both AMD and Intel are trying to push more BGA only Options there where the upgrade path is limited and that's OEM based there for processor sales to the OEM market and not any DIY friendly consumer market where the processor makers can sell by the tray at 1000+ units at a time there to the OEMs.
PeachNCream - Thursday, June 22, 2023 - link
It looks tasteful and appears to be headed for a decent price. I like it and if I were still clueless enough to buy new desktop components, I'd put this motherboard at the top of my list. But alas, laptops exist and for me, there is no need for anything other than a working, used laptop.Samus - Thursday, June 22, 2023 - link
If this generation improves quality over Gigabytes recent boards this will be a no brainer for my next ITX PC.StevoLincolnite - Friday, June 23, 2023 - link
The last Gigabyte board I owned was the 990FX-UD7. - The vdroop issues, lack of support and general flakeyness of that board turned me off the brand.Been Asus ever since which has been rock solid.
Samus - Friday, June 23, 2023 - link
Yeah, same. While Asus has some quirks that began with the 8th gen (like way overvolting CPU's to maintain boost - a losing battle if you didn't have enough cooling) there is community support to work around issues, assuming Asus doesn't address them. In my case of the Z370-Strix ITX running the CPU at 1.4v, a -0.125v offset resolved it. And in the case of a recent B660M, stability issues were resolved using XMP-I instead of XMP-II. Strangely, nobody seems to have issues with the B760M on XMP-II even though its an identical board with a chipset that is very similar to the B660. Again, in both cases, the community came though, whereas Gigabytes community seems to pull their hair out trying to find answers to problems.