We Bought the Cheapest AM4 Motherboard on Amazon...
We Bought the Cheapest AM4 Motherboard on Amazon...
2018-11-30
we decided to buy the cheapest rice on
motherboard on Amazon and as of November
15th that was at the gigabyte a 320 M s
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more this motherboards a peculiar one
falling into the micro ATX subset the
board is also physically slimmer than
conventional ATX counterparts meaning
you might have some extra space between
your 24 pin and the cable routing
cutouts in your case aesthetically it
isn't the sharpest tool in the shed I
mean this is a $50 board but at least it
doesn't look like this we've got a black
PCB for starters one full 16-lane gen 3
PCIe slot and two smaller single-lane
slots just below the s2h does not
support crossfire or SLI not that you
could manage to make it work anyway with
this slot config the board also lacks
integrated Wi-Fi only has two DIMM slots
two fan hubs and a barebone audio
interface with the ALC 8 8 7 codec not
all is bad however one pleasant surprise
is that this board supports 2nd gen
rising processors out of the box
including Rison 22 and 2400 gaap use
with either you'll be able to make use
of the HDMI port not sure which gen
we're looking at here since it isn't
listed meaning it's probably 1.4
this is disappointing seeing as though
rising AP use openly support hdmi 2.0
configs for 4k 60fps playback though
with 1.4 you'll be locked to 4k 30 this
was confirmed with my 4k panel you'll
need discreet graphics if you intend to
use this board for an HT PC which is a
bit disappointing why would you buy a
micro ATX in the first place but if you
aren't an HD
user just yet you'll still find DVI and
D sub ports on the s2h additional rear
i/o includes two ps2 ports for USB 3.1
ports two USB to ports and an rj45 port
packed with the realtek Gigabit LAN
driver the remainder of the board's
layout is it's fairly straightforward
the a320 chipset resides under this
small heatsink doesn't really do much
for SATA three ports are staggered to
the right and the 24 pin sits in its
usual spot along with an 8 pin EPS up
near the top left another peculiar
feature of this board is MDOT to support
if you plan to use an Athlon processor
for this board you'll be locked to the
state or interface but horizon
processors can drive a PCIe based
connection for use with significantly
faster solid-state drives this is
something I did not expect to find and a
$50 board but I'll take it
no heatsink is included but you know
it's still cool that it's there now if
you're worried about power delivery yeah
it really shouldn't I mean not that you
could conventionally overclock with this
chipset anyway I actually found that the
BIOS will make it seem as though you're
overclocking but you really can't and
like I said earlier buyers of these
boards should be those concerned with
very tight budgets so overclocking
probably isn't at the top of your
priority list with that said let's take
a look at the vrm anyway the a 220 M
utilizes an is l9 5 7 2 which is
actually the same chip gigabyte uses and
it's B 350 and X 370 motherboards it
relies on a 4 plus 3 phase array nothing
on this board is doubled meaning that
we've got two phases up top for SOC and
4 down to the left of the socket for v
core for core CPUs it shouldn't have a
problem with this board and because this
is a lock tips that we don't expect
anything approaching 10 watts of heat
from the vrm itself for C 10 in MOSFETs
on the high side for Co 6 is on the low
side and we do have 2 of those per face
no vrm heatsink is included with this
board however which again complements
the locked aspect of the chipset all in
all despite a subpar power delivery
system we've got going on here this is
actually pretty good one seen in the
context of other first gen rising boards
from gigabyte you'll actually find that
a lot of B through 50 boards use a very
similar set up from a power delivery
standpoint so I'm actually I'm kind of
impressed here in the nine five seven
one two is the same Intersil PWM
generator regulator I should say that is
used in those higher-end boards too so
Oh No kind of cool now in our testing
the soc VR I managed to fare sixty
degrees Celsius of via probing keep in
mind actual temps were likely hotter but
we'll use the same testing methodology
going forward a top mounted CPU fan
config certainly does play a role into
our VR M's peak temperature so expect
this to change if we switch to something
a little more aftermarket like maybe a
hybrid 212 Evo or a cryo rig age 7 our
65 watt 1300 X while under an identical
load managed to pull almost as exact TDP
about 64 watts as measured with our
clamp meter over hot lines in our EPS
the CPU reached a comfortable 71 degrees
and our stock cooler managed to stay
under 40 decibels thanks in large part
to the CPUs low TDP now with respect to
the s to HS BIOS it's pretty much what
you've come to expect from most gigabyte
boards at this point I'm not the biggest
fan of this style UEFI but it does get
the job done fan curves can be
configured here boot drives can be
selected here and XMP profiles can be
toggled here that's pretty much all you
need to know about this a320 BIOS given
the fact that the chipsets you know
boasting a very limited set of functions
I mean you can't do much other than
maybe overclock a ram and like I said
change pan configs and select your pooch
I don't know what else you'd want to do
on an a320 BIOS but that's about all I
was interested in now one thing I do
want to show you in real time I have
seen a few instances and forums where
people have claimed they've been able to
overclock on a 320 chipsets and I think
what they're actually seeing here is the
fact that they can like I said in the
video manually toggle the multiplier
right the CPU clock ratio this is what
gigabyte calls it so you can change this
to whatever you want look I can change
this to I can change it to 55 boom I got
a 5.5 gigahertz overclock right on paper
but then we go to save this and this
setting will hold by the way this will
show up again if we if we reboot it'll
it'll act as though it's stuck now but
we'll go to save and exit and I'll show
you in CPU Z what the system is actually
reporting the CPU frequency is operating
at and it is nowhere near 55 actually it
will cap at around 3.6 which i think is
what the cpu out of the box essentially
turbos to its am
version of just automatic overclocking
so we're opening up cpu-z
and obviously if the 5.5 gigahertz
overclock actually stuck there's no way
we put into the operating system there's
I have not come across any CPU that will
just you know allow me to Auto voltage
manually overclock multipliers 55 and
let it boot stable so that's the that's
the first red flag second is that CPU Z
is saying that we're running at every
now and then it Peaks to three point
eight but when we run an all core
benchmark let's say night of 64 which is
what we did in the video then you'll see
this core speed will cap out at roughly
thirty six hundred megahertz that's 3.6
gigahertz and that is essentially the
cap for the CPU without any manual
overclock set which tells us that
anything we're doing in the BIOS or the
bio says that we're actually
overclocking is not actually sticking in
the system so I have a feeling that most
if not all of those people claiming
their a320 chipsets allow them to
overclock or actually just falling for
the placebo effect if we ran Cinebench
before and after a manual overclock in
our BIOS then we would probably see no
gain at all because we're not actually
changing anything the BIOS just says we
are and also for those wondering there
is no base clock toggle anywhere in here
it seems this was disabled blood fall
which would also indicate that gigabyte
does not want you to do any manual
overclocking at all that would be our
second resort right basically
overclocking was something we did
heavily with locked Scylla excused from
Intel there is no toggle for that that I
can find in this BIOS here so here's a
synopsis on the DL as bare-bones as this
thing is gigabytes actually included a
few decent features including the 10.2
port we addressed earlier along with pwm
fan support usually just see voltage
control but pw support is nice you'll
still find a USB 3 hub as well
something i forgot to mention earlier
just know type-c support but all in all
for 50 bucks CA through 20mm s2h is too
shabby I mean now now listen for the
question of kebaya bility which i want
to talk about next that's a different
story the a320 chipset is packed full of
compromises including but not limited to
obviously CPU overclock ability all rise
in CPU support unlock multipliers so it
seems kind of like a waste to pair them
with locked chipsets especially the
higher-end skis it's a bit like on intel
side purchasing an i5 8600 k
and then pairing it with a B 360 chipset
in my opinion those two just don't add
up and to be honest 2 gigabyte sells a
nearly identical be 350 boards for
something in the realm of like 5 to 10
bucks more so the idea that 80/20
chipsets have a place in the market at
these current price points seems a bit
far-fetched I would say this this should
be priced more in the realm of 40 bucks
or less my advice is spend a few extra
bucks on the better board maybe even a
better vrm than the one gigabyte
recycled through pretty much its entire
first gen rise and lineup nothing
performance wise was really an issue
here but the lack of native overclocking
support is a real kick in the teeth in
my opinion there may be occasional BIOS
updates that support overclocking in the
future you know base clock overclocking
but as a general rule these chipsets are
locked because their power delivery
layouts aren't rated for higher wattages
I mean come on imagine like running at
2700 X overclocked on this port here the
vom doesn't even have a heatsink and
when you're dealing with a hundred amps
right under load things can get quite
toasty and that's dangerous so if you're
intent going into this video was to give
the a320 chipset a chance you don't for
most if not all gamers on a budget the
be 350 or 450 chipsets will go a long
way for just a few extra bucks again the
overclocking is a huge part of that but
you may also get onboard Wi-Fi crossfire
and SLI support additional SATA ports
RAM slots I mean two Ram slots are you
kidding me
the list goes on I did have a lot of fun
creating this video though and I do
appreciate you taking time out of your
day to indulge and you're a morbid
curiosity like I did here cheap stuff is
always fun to test maybe next time I'll
throw 2,700 ex into this thing and
overclock it until the chokes melt away
I don't know I might want to try that
outside we shall see if you guys like
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appreciate it stay tuned for the next
video this is science studio thanks for
indulging in your curiosities with me
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