Built to Last

ASUS is the world's foremost motherboard manufacturer, renowned for our unique Design Thinking approach. Our exhaustive testing exceeds industry standards, supported by high-quality components for exceptional real-world protection. Our motherboards are proven to be compatible with more than 1,000 components and devices, and each new model undergoes a minimum of 8,000 hours of strict validation. ASUS gives you the peace of mind of knowing that your motherboard is fit for all environments and applications. By choosing ASUS, you also gain the freedom to select outstanding component options, for trouble-free DIY experiences.

5X Protection III	350+ DDR4 Compatibility	1000+ Compatible Devices	8000+ Validation Hours
Hardware safeguards to ensure long-term durability.	Industry-leading DDR4 memory compatibility for best flexibility and reassurance.	Compatibility with a range of CPUs, memory modules, graphics cards and more.	Extensive testing with latest components for enhanced reliability, compatibility and safety.

SafeSlot Core

Fortified PCIe slot prevents damage

SafeSlot Core is the ASUS-exclusive PCIe slot. Featuring a fortified design that's anchored to the motherboard by a special hook, Safeslot Core provides 1.6x stronger retention and 1.3x greater shearing resistance than standard expansion slots.

LANGuard

Pumped-up throughput. 2.5x higher surge tolerance.

ASUS LANGuard is hardware-level networking protection that employs signal-coupling technology and premium anti-EMI surface-mounted capacitors to ensure a more reliable connection and better throughput, plus electrostatically guarded and surge-protected components for greater tolerance to static electricity and improved protection against surges.

Overvoltage Protection

World-class circuit-protecting power design

An exclusive circuit design with built-in voltage regulators to protect your chipset, connectivity ports, and audio codecs from damage caused by unexpected high-level voltages from unstable or inferior power supplies. * Specifications and features vary by model, and all images are illustrative. Please refer specification pages for full details.

Proven Compatibility

Tested to be compatible with 1,000+ CPUs, DDR4 memory modules, graphics cards and more

Having the freedom to pick and choose the parts that go into your machine is at the heart of PC DIY. Our extensive certification program focuses on providing the very best compatibility with the widest range of components and devices, giving you the freedom to build and upgrade without frustration. Compatible today and compatible far into the future that's the ASUS way.

Extensive List of Supported Devices

View supported devices and Qualified Vendor List for compatible memory

The superior compatibility of Prime A320 series is evidenced by our extensive list of supported devices which includes thousands of compatible components and our Qualified Vendor List that identifies memory compatibility. That means more choices for worry-free PC-building experiences.

Top-to-bottom Reliability

ASUS motherboards have superb endurance. We verify this by subjecting every board to more than 8,000 hours of stringent tests. A barrage of burn-in, environmental, compatibility, software and safety tests confirm that our motherboards are exceptionally robust. It also shows that ASUS reliability surpasses industry standards, ensuring that every component is designed to function flawlessly in any environment.

8000+

VALIDATION HOURS

Temperature and Humidity Test Ensures components withstand extreme conditions.	Thermal Measurement Test Ensures that the system remains cool and stable under the heaviest loads.	Insertion Test Every port and connector is put through repeated installation cycles.	Aging Test Up to 48-hour aging test ensures reliability.

Power Consumption Test Checked for world-class energy efficiency.	Temperature and DC Margin Test Ensures that the motherboard is capable of coping with Voltage fluctuations caused by varying temperatures.	Thermal Shock Test Ensures ability to survive temperature changes during transportation.	Non-Operation Shock Test Built to withstand jolts that may occur during shipping.

DDR4 Support

With DDR4, you'll accelerate memory frequencies up to an incredible to 3200MHz! And ASUS works with almost every DDR4 memory vendor, so you're assured the best compatibility.

Enjoy the DDR4 benefits with Prime A320 series. (DDR4 vs DDR3)

Speed Up with Onboard M.2 Up to 32Gb/s

With x4 PCI Express 3.0/2.0 bandwidth, M.2 supports up to 32Gb/s data-transfer speeds. It is the perfect choice for an operating system or application drive, making your whole PC or professional apps work as fast as possible.

Instant front-panel USB 3.0 Experience

We've put USB 3.0 right where you need it - four super-speed ports on the front panel. Experience data-transfer speeds up to 10X faster than USB 2.0 with instant plug-and-play connectivity, so no more back-breaking contortions in the hunt for hard-to-reach rear ports!

Q-Slot Effortless PCI Express component removal The large winged clip is easy to reach and easy to operate. Just press the Q-Slot clip lightly, and the graphics card pops out. Installing or removing even the biggest graphics cards is no sweat!	Q-DIMM Easy memory removal Even if you work with a smaller case, just push down on the one-sided clip and push or pull RAM modules in or out - removing memory is that simple!

AMD Ryzen 3 Features and specifications

The new Ryzen 3 processors still pack in most of the features of the Zen architecture, despite their lower price.

They deliver a huge boost to the number of instructions in each clock cycle in a bid to claw back Intels long-standing lead in this department, as well as introducing Precision Boost AMDs new equivalent to Turbo Boost which allows these new chips to dynamically overclock when thermal conditions allow.

Ryzen also features Extended Frequency Range, or XFR. This allows Ryzen CPUs to provide an extra boost to a single core. X-suffix chips can improve a single core by 100MHz, while processors without thatbranding receive a 50MHz bump.

The Zen architecture also delivers a significant improvement to efficiency an area where AMDs previous-gen processors have fallen behind. Compare the past generation FX-8150 and theRyzen 7 1800X: the former has a huge TDP of 125W, while the latter sits at just 95W.

All Ryzen chips have unlocked multipliers, but the Ryzen 3 chips on review here dont have simultaneous multi-threading something that Intel has also removed from its low-end parts. That means each core can only address a single task, rather than two. Still, given Ryzen 3 comes with four cores as standard, that puts it in the same category as Intels more expensive desktop Core i5 chips.

The top Ryzen 3 chip is the 1300X. It costs 125/$129, and its a quad-core processor without multi-threading; its clocked to 3.5GHz with a 3.7GHz Turbo peak. Its base speed is comparable with other Ryzen parts, although the Turbo speed feels a little unambitious.

The top Ryzen 3 chip retains the X suffix, which means it wields the full 100MHz boost available across one of its cores.

Elsewhere, the 1300X has 8MB of L3 cache, which is half as much as most other Ryzen chips, and its TDP of 65W matches most Ryzen 5 chips.

Their stock and Turbo speeds of 3.1GHz and 3.4GHz are more modest, however, and this isnt an X-branded part so it only gets a reduced version of XFR that delivers a 50MHz boost on one core.

The Ryzen parts look tempting when stacked up against Intels competition. The Core i3-7350K is a Kaby Lake part and is unlocked for overclocking, plus it has a 4.2GHz stock speed but it has no Turbo ability, and the same 8MB of L3 cache.

AMD Ryzen 3 The platform

The new Ryzen chips use AMDs AM4 platform. This new platform supports dual-channel DDR4 memory and uses the new AM4 socket, so youll probably need a new CPU cooler especially if you want to overclock a Ryzen processor.

The AM4 platform is supported by five new chipsets. The top-tier silicon is the X370, which offers the best support for PCI lanes, SATA connectivity and USB ports. Its also the only AM4 chipset to support both AMD CrossFire and Nvidia SLI.

The B350 chipset is next in the range, and it supports just CrossFire. Those two chipsets are also the only two AM4 parts to support overclocking.

The A320, X300 and A/B300 chipsets are designed for entry-level and small-form-factor PCs, which means no multi-GPU support and a reduced number of PCI lanes, SATA ports and USB connections.

That said, always check what a motherboard is offering, because most manufacturers supplement their chosen chipsets with third-party hardware to add more connectivity such as extra SATA ports or M.2 sockets, or better audio.

AMD Ryzen 3 Performance

The Ryzen 3 1300X has a lesser single-core speed than Intels Core i3-7350K, but double the number of cores, and as such I expected the two chips to trade blows in application benchmarks with Intel being better in single-threaded tasks, and AMD taking plaudits in tougher tests.

Note: There are cheaper processors closer to the price of the Ryzen 3 line-up, including non-overclockable Core i3s and new dual-core, four-thread Pentium chips, most if not all with higher single-core clock speeds than the Ryzen 3s. At the time of testing we could only obtain the Core i3 referred to here.

AMD Ryzen 3 Power Consumption

AMDs latest chips make big gains in efficiency, with performance that can almost match Intels Kaby Lake processors.

The Ryzen 3 1300X and 1200 both managed idle power draws of 67W, which was only three watts more than the Core i3 part required.

The 1300Xs peak power requirement of 90W was level with the Core i3 chip, and the Ryzen 3 1200 peaked at 82W.

Ryzens reduced power consumption was paired with better thermal performance. There wasnt much to choose between the AMD and Intel parts when idling, but the 1300Xs peak temperature of 48C was five degrees better than the Core i3 and the Ryzen 3 1200 topped out at a cool 41C.