X370 vs b350 vs a320: differences between am4 chipsets

The new AMD AM4 platform has already been announced, so it is time to review the different chipsets that will power this new and renewed platform from the Sunnyvale company. Recall that AM4 arrives to give compatibility to the Bristol Ridge APUs and the new Ryzen processors based on the Zen microarchitecture. It will also be compatible with future Raven Ridge APUs.

Index of contents

X370 vs B350 vs A320

"Zen" is the name of AMD's new high performance microarchitecture for its x86 processors, these processors come with the name "Ryzen". These new processors are an important turning point for an AMD that has seen its great rival, Intel, has been unattainable for the last five years.

The new AM4 motherboards for Ryzen arrive based on three different ranges with the X370, B350 and A320 chipsets so it is the best time to review what each of them will offer us. Recall that the Ryzen design is SoC (System on a chip) so the processor itself integrates a large amount of logic necessary for its operation, the chipsets are only to extend the basic capabilities of the platform. Despite this, nothing has been known about motherboards without a chipset, so the safest thing is that the logic integrated in the processor is not enough for its correct operation.

Differences

X370 is the new high-end chipset and the one with the most features, for example it has the same 2 additional USB 3.1 ports over the mid-range B350 chipset, while the low-end A320 chipset has 1. The PCI-Express lanes 2.0 are another important difference between the three solutions with an increase of 2 lanes to each snow starting from the 4 lanes of the A320. These lanes are the ones that will be used by the different storage devices that are based on this technology, for example the NVMe SSDs.

As for the PCI-Express 3.0 lanes, these are found in the processor itself with a quantity of x20. These lanes will be used exclusively by the graphics card, in the case of using a single card it will work in x16 mode and if we use two or more cards they will be divided among all of them to distribute the bandwidth offered by the new platform.

Perhaps the most significant difference will be found in sections such as overclocking, the A320 does not allow this advanced function while the B350 will allow it to a lower level than the X370 with fewer options in the BIOS, it remains to be seen if the difference will affect the systems of overclock with one click from motherboard manufacturers. In multi-GPU configurations we also see an important difference, the X370 will be the only one to allow SLI and Corssfire systems while the B350 is limited only to CrossFire. The A320 does not allow either solution.

Table with all the characteristics of the X370, B250 and A320

The following table details all the differences between the three chipsets available on the new AMD AM4 motherboards:

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	X370	B350	A320	Ryzen (CPU)	Bristol Ridge (APU)
PCIe 3.0	1 × 16/2 × 8.	1 x 16.	1 x 16.	twenty.	10 *.
USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbit / s)	two	two	one
USB 3.0	10	6	6	10	6
USB 2.0	6	6	6
SATA + NVME	6 + x2 NVMe.	4 + x2 NVMe.	4 + x2 NVMe.	two	two
SATA-Raid	1/1/10	1/1/10	1/1/10	-	-
Sata Express	two	two	two	-	-
Overclocking	Yes	Yes	Do not	-	-
CrossFire / SLI	Yes Yes	If not	Nerd	-	-

* 18 when 2 x SATA is working

Therefore the B350 chipset is recommended for most users, only the most demanding with overclocking or those who are going to mount SLI system with several Nvidia cards or do a strong overclock have the need to opt for the X370 of highest range. By cons users who are not going to use the overclock or multiple graphics card systems have more than enough with the low-end A320 chipset.

We recommend reading the best motherboards on the market.

The TDP does matter

The most demanding Ryzen processors with power have a TDP of only 95W so any motherboard can handle them without problems, the situation of the FX-9000 that had an exaggerated TDP of 220W and only the most prepared boards will not be repeated they could with them. AMD Ryzen provides great flexibility when choosing the motherboard, you can perfectly fit the top of the range, the Ryzen 7 1800X on the cheapest motherboard on the market.