Overclocking is possible on AMD A520 motherboards

While it seems like these days overclocking is all about spending big money to make expensive parts even faster to hit big records, in simpler times it was actually more about doing things you weren't supposed to do and getting some usually gains. For example, the first system I overclocked was a 450MHz Pentium III, those were known to relatively easily hit 600MHz.

Anyway, despite official information indicating that the AMD A520 chipset does not support overclocking, YouTube channel Buildzoid discovered that this feature is working just fine on the Gigabyte A520M H motherboard.

Buildzoid notes this Gigabyte motherboard allows BCLK overclocking and he used it to push a Ryzen 5 3600 to 4389MHz on all six cores. It's unknown whether Gigabyte is the only motherboard maker that allows BCLK overclocking on the A520 series, and it's also unknown whether this will get patched in future firmware. Either way, it's not really recommended to push chips hard on the A520 as motherboards with this chipset have pretty basic power delivery designs.

The biggest challenge with BCLK overclocking is finding the settings that ensure the entire system lives in harmony. Ryzen's BCLK is connected to other interfaces, including PCIe, SATA, and USB ports. Raising the BCLK effectively overclocks everything else, which is why overclockers prefer playing with the ratio multipliers more than the BCLK if given a choice. Sadly, only the latter is possible on the A520 chipset.

Via: Tom's Hardware