ASRock Updates BIOS with AGESA 0.0.7.2 Support for A320 Boards

Can an A320 Motherboard Support a Ryzen 3000 CPU?

AMD‘s 3rd generation Ryzen (or Ryzen 3000) processors are about to launch soon. Some existing AM4 motherboard owners are of course, awaiting for that moment that they can swap out their CPU with a more powerful model.

Unfortunately however, it is starting to look like some AM4 motherboards may not get Ryzen 3000 support at all. Not so much the X370 or B350 chipsets, but the budget A320.

Although AMD promised backwards and forwards compatibility for their Ryzen CPUs and motherboards until 2020, the higher power requirements of new CPUs might be an issue for weaker motherboards like the A320. There is also the problem of it cutting into motherboard manufacturer’s bottom line.

Some ASRock A320 Boards Now Have AGESA 0.0.7.2 Update

So far only ASUS, and now ASRock have an AGESA 0.0.7.2 update for some of their A320 motherboards. This microcode update enables Ryzen 3000 compatibility, and ASRock so far has five A320 chipset motherboards with a new BIOS adding support.

These are the ASRock A320TM-ITX, A320M-HDV, A320M-DGS, A320M Pro4 R2.0, A320M-HDV R4.0.

There is one caveat however. Depending on how the new Ryzen 3000 processors draw power, these boards might only support the lower end 3rd Gen Ryzen CPUs. It might be insufficient to run the flagship Ryzen 7 CPUs for example. Akin to the FX-9590 CPU “compatibility” from several years ago, which proved to be inaccurate as only a few boards had sufficient VRM to power it properly.

After all, the AGESA 0.0.7.2 update also brings support for Athlon 200 Raven 2 APUs. So it is still possible that these boards cannot support Ryzen 3000.

For now, we would have to wait for an official confirmation from ASRock in terms of CPU compatibility.