The protagonist of the recent AMD event was the Radeon RX 6700 XT, which costs $479. However, prior to this, Radeon executive Scott Hulculman delivered the good news. The AMD Smart Access Memory feature, which allows you to enjoy games faster, will be applied to the AMD Ryzen 3000 processor.
Smart Access Memory is a technology that was unveiled with the Ryzen 5000 processor. By utilizing the resizable BAR (Resizable BAR), an additional feature of the PCIe standard, the CPU can fully access the entire memory beyond 256MB of the normal memory buffer of a graphics card.
AMD explained that using smart access memory improves performance by up to 16% under ideal circumstances. However, PCWorld’s direct testing on the Radeon RX 6900 XT showed that the number of frames increased by up to 8% depending on the game and resolution.
The company did not specifically say when it will release a new BIOS that enables the Smart Access Memory feature on Ryzen 3000 processors. Depending on the user, it may be necessary to upgrade the BIOS of the motherboard to use this function.
If it is unclear whether the current Intel motherboard supports resizable BAR, it is good to think that the smart access memory function is applied to more expensive boards first. Considering that software upgrades have been very limited for low-end products, updates may not be available for low-end motherboards.
It’s not yet clear whether Smart Access Memory will be available on older 300- and 400-series motherboards, but if you want to use this feature with the latest Ryzen 5000 processors, you’ll need the latest X570 and B550 motherboards.
Once your motherboard and CPU support smart memory access, you’ll need to purchase a compatible graphics card. AMD supports smart access memory on Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs. It complies with the PCIe resizable BAR standard, so it works on Ryzen systems that are compatible with graphics cards from other vendors.
In fact, the new GeForce RTX 3060 is Nvidia’s first graphics card to support Resizable BAR, which can further boost frame performance on Ryzen 5000 computers. NVIDIA said other RTX 30-series Founder Edition models will provide a BIOS update to enable the resizable BAR feature by the end of March. Subsequently, BIOS updates for custom cards will also be released.
Regardless of the specific product, it is good news that AMD’s smart access memory is spreading. With the recent lack of supply in the graphics industry, many users are unable to purchase the Ryzen 5000 with smart access memory, while the still available Ryzen 3000 chip will help more gamers take advantage of the new smart access memory features.
Of course, it wasn’t until the scalable BAR became the industry standard for CPU, GPU, and motherboard. [email protected]