ASRock A620 Motherboards Feature Full Support For PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs But Future AMD AGESA Updates Might Be A Problem

ASRock seems to have integrated full support for PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs on its newly released AMD A620 motherboard lineup.

Budget-Friendly AMD A620 Motherboards From ASRock Fully Support PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs

AMD and its partners recently introduced the A620 chipset and the respective motherboards that are aimed at the entry-tier segment. These motherboards start at $85 US which is 32% lower than the starting price of B650 motherboards, allowing budget gamers and PC builders to make some really cost-effective PC builds using loads of CPU options available within the Ryzen 7000 family.

In our AMD A620 motherboard roundup, we disclosed how the chipset featured support for an all-Gen 4.0 hardware design with the base specs including a single PCIe Gen 4 x16 and PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot.

However, as it turns out, that isn’t entirely the case based on what we have been able to find within testing done by our sources who managed to secure one of the latest ASRock A620M Pro RS WIFI motherboards which should cost around $100 US and comes with a very decent design that houses two M.2 slots (1 with heatsink). The motherboard was paired with an AMD Ryzen 5 7600 & CFD’s Gaming latest Gen 5 NVMe SSD which is rated at up to 10 GB/s speeds.

In CrystalDisk and ATTO tests, the CFD Gaming Gen 5 NVMe SSD can be seen fully supporting the PCIe Gen 5.0 x4 interface and ATTO even shows the drive putting out its rated performance figures of 10 GB/s without an issue. As we know, the PCIe Gen 4.0 x4 interface allows a maximum of 8 GB/s transfer rates through the protocol while Gen 5.0 x4 supports up to 16 GB/s. This is definitely super interesting and we have been told is even more interesting.

Talking to motherboard vendors, it is revealed that A620 motherboards can support Gen 5 NVMe SSDs. ASRock’s Pro offerings come with the necessary hardware to support that so you can simply slot in a Gen 5 SSD and use the advantages associated with it.

However, the restriction comes from AMD itself and while Gen 5 SSD support might be enabled on A620 motherboards for now, future AGESA updates may limit that once again. And while having this support is definitely great, it does not make sense to have a Gen 5 SSD running on an entry-level platform like this since the SSDs are priced around $300-$400 US, more than what you’ll be paying for an entry-level Ryzen 7000 CPU.

You can see from the listed builds above that AMD is specifically targeting A620 as a PCIe Gen 4.0 platform and you can also note that from the configurations mentioned above. As expected, AMD suggests a Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU be paired nicely with the A620 platform, and for good reason too. The CPU has a lower TDP, aims solely at gamers, & doesn’t benefit a lot from overclocking though you still get PBO and Curve Optimizer tuning options. For users who want higher multi-threaded performance, they can go with one of the 65W Ryzen 9 7900 CPU options.