AMD A620 Motherboard Review Ft. ASRock PRO RS WIFI & Gigabyte A620M Gaming X

Conclusion - A620 But Over $100

AMD designed the A620 motherboards to be affordable and while they have a starting point of $85 US, the majority of options retail above $100 US. Today, we got to test two of these $100 US+ board options and see if they hold up with the Ryzen 7000 CPUs well. Our reference test setup included a Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU with DDR5-6000 EXPO memory. EXPO is fully supported by the A620 boards and our samples were able to support these kits with relative ease though going above 6000 Mbps will be a bit difficult as most boards peak out here.

ASRock A620M Pro RS WIFI

Starting off with the A620M Pro RS WiFI from ASRock, the motherboard, we are looking at a price point of $124.99 US, and in the case that you don't want to use WIFI, you can get the standard Pro RS option which retails for $10 US less and still gives you that extra M.2 WiFi slot if you want to add WIFI later down the road.

The motherboard has a decent heatsink which did run a bit toasty in the mid-80s when running the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU. It comes with triple the M.2 slots, one Gen 4x4 with a heatsink, one 4.0 x4 without a heatsink, and a 3.0 x2 slot. These can be equipped with entry-level storage devices for higher capacities and in addition to that, there are four SATA III ports which should be enough for the vast majority of entry-level gamers. I have yet to see an entry-level gamer with more than 2 or 3 HDDs in their system. Plus, getting two 2 TB or 4 TB drives and a 1 TB NVMe for OS should be more than enough for your gaming needs.

The ASRock motherboard comes with a BIOS Flashback button, a pre-installed I/O shield, and a good amount of USB ports on the front and rear. It also has decent RGB/ARGB support and the overall performance was very nice given the cost of this motherboard. The $115-$125 US price point does make it reach close to the entry-level B650 options which are a better purchase but those are rare deals that can only be found on certain retailers. As such, these A620 boards are going to retain the lowest price point for the AM5 platform for now.

Gigabyte A620M Gaming X

The Gigabyte A620M Gaming X motherboard comes at a price point of $120 US so it slots between the ASRock Pro RS WIFI and Non-WIFI models. The performance is within acceptable levels but it does get a bit toasty in the 90s range for the VRM temperatures. We also noted some abnormal clock behavior on the Ryzen 9 7950X3D with this board which was running at least 200-300 MHz below its average frequencies. The VRM cooling isn't that great, to begin with, and makes use of a single aluminum stack on just one side.

But the biggest issue with this motherboard is its feature set which lacks way behind the ASRock offering. You are getting just one PCIe 4.0 x4 slot and while there's a heatsink attached to it, the placement of this slot right beneath the PCIe 4.0 x16 slot will make it harder to access. At least there's the EZ-Latch PCIe slot implementation which makes removing graphics cards easier. You get an extra PCIe 3.0 x1 slot but there's no support for WIFI and the I/O is disappointing with just 6 USB ports on the back compared to 8 for ASRock. There is a Q-Flash button but that's just about it. Given the pricing, ASRock's A620M Pro RS offerings are a far better choice compared to the A620M Gaming X from Gigabyte.

Following is a general comparison of the two motherboards:

ASRock A620M Pro RS WIFI vs Gigabyte A620M Gaming X

Motherboard	ASRock A620M Pro RS WIFI	Gigabyte A620M Gaming X
Form Factor	mATX	mATX
Socket	LGA 1718	LGA 1718
VRM	6+2+1 (50A)	8+2+1 (50A)
VRM Heatsink	2-Sided	1-Sided
Power Delivery	1 x 8-Pin	1 x 8-Pin
Memory Support	DDR5-6000 (EXPO)	DDR5-6400 (EXPO)
Memory Capacity	128 GB	128 GB
PCIe Slots	1 x PCIe 4.0 x16	1 x PCIe 4.0 x16 1 x PCIe 3.0 x1
M.2 Slots	2 Gen 4.0 x4 1 Gen 3.0 x2	1 Gen 4.0 x4
M.2 Heatsink	1 Gen 4.0 x4	N/A
SATA Ports	4 SATA III	4 SATA III
USB 3.2 Gen 2 Ports	N/A	1 (1 Rear)
USB 3.2 Gen 1 Ports	7 (4 Rear / 3 Front)	6 (3 Rear / 2 Front)
USB 2.0 Ports	8 (2 Rear / 2 Front)	4 (2 Rear / 2 Front)
BIOS Flash Button	Yes (Rear)	Yes (Rear)
LAN	1 x Realtek 811H 1GbE	1 x Realtek 811H 1GbE
WIFI	WIFI 6E	N/A
Audio	Realtek 7.1 Channel	Realtek 7.1 Channel
Price	$124.99 US	$119.99 US

Between the two motherboards, I think the ASRock A620M Pro RS WIFI is the obvious choice as it offers vastly better I/O and a design that works well for an entry-level product. The $114.99 US Pro RS without WIFI is an even better option if you have an M.2 WiFi card lying around you. With great aesthetics, great I/O capabilities, and a very affordable price, the A620 Pro RS WIFI makes perfect sense to get for a new budget Ryzen build, especially one that's paired with the Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU.

Note: The following award has been given to the ASRock A620M Pro RS WIFI motherboards:

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