Gigabyte is adding the A320-DS3 and A320M-HD2 to their AMD AM4 lineup, designed to be affordable, APU-friendly motherboards with their A320 chipsets. Although both the A320-DS3 and A320M-HD2 are compatible with AMD Ryzen CPUs, the A320 chipset has features that are more optimally suited for more affordable AMD socket AM4 Athlon CPUs and Raven Ridge APUs that are coming soon. The A320 chipset lacks the overclocking capabilities of the X370 and B350 motherboards, bbut has PCIe x4 NVMe support, 1x USB 3.1 Gen2 port, 6x USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, and 6x USB 2.0 ports.
The Gigabyte A320M-HD2 uses a micro-ATX form factor and is equipped with only two DDR4 DIMM slots with no heatsinks on the VRM MOSFETs. It is obviously designed for affordability, although what it lacks in those features, it makes up for with functionality, having Gigabyte’s Smart Fan 5 feature that uses five temperature sensors and three hybrid fan headers (4-pin PWM or Voltage controllable). Smart Fan 5 can be configured so that each fan responds to a specific temperature threshold on the sensor the user designated it to monitor and not just limited to the socket area.
It has a Realtek Gigabit LAN and REaltek ALC887 HD Audio codec with three analog audio jacks in the rear. It is equipped with Nichicon fine gold audio capacitors and has an isolated audio subsystem for improved onboard audio quality. For display output when an AMD APU is installed, it has an HDMI 1.4 port, a DVI-D port and a D-sub port supporting all simultaneous displays at the same time.
The Gigabyte A320-DS3 is similarly made for those with limited budget having two DDR4 DIMM slots as well instead of four and having no VRM heatsinks around the CPU socket since the A320 chipset does not have overclocking capability anyway. It uses an ATX form factor but is slightly shorter at 205mm wide instead of the usual 244mm. Like the A320M-HD2, it has a Realtek Gigabit LAN with a Realtek ALC887 HD audio codec and three analog audio jacks at the rear. It is also equipped with Nichicon fine gold audio capacitors and has an isolated audio subsystem for improved onboard audio quality. It however, lacks the HDMI 1.4 port in the rear, having only a DVI-D port and a D-Sub port so the maximum resolution with an onboard APU installed is only 1920 x 1200 @ 60Hz instead of 4K. Unlike the A320M-HD2 however, the Gigabyte A320-DS3 is capable of running Crossfire when two discrete Radeon video cards are used simultaneously.
For more information visit:
- http://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-A320M-HD2-rev-10#sp
- http://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-A320-DS3-rev-10#sp
