AMD just enabled Smart Access Memory for select Ryzen 3000 desktop processors!
Find out what Smart Access Memory does, and how to enable it for a FREE boost in performance!
Smart Access Memory Now Enabled For Ryzen 3000 CPUs!
When AMD launched the Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card, they also mentioned that Smart Access Memory is now enabled for Ryzen 3000 desktop processors, except :
- AMD Ryzen 5 3400G
- AMD Ryzen 3 3200G
This would give those older processors a small but FREE boost in performance, when paired with Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards and AMD 500 series motherboards.
To enable Smart Access Memory for your Ryzen 3000 / 5000 series PC, please follow the steps!
Unfortunately, AMD has not enabled Smart Access Memory for Radeon RX 5000 series graphics cards, or AMD 400 series motherboards yet.
Recommended : AMD Smart Access Memory (Resizable BAR) Guide
Smart Access Memory : How Does It Boost Ryzen 3000 Performance?
Smart Access Memory is AMD’s marketing term for their implementation of the PCI Express Resizable BAR (Base Address Registers) capability.
What does that mean exactly?
CPUs are traditionally limited to a 256 MB I/O memory address region for the GPU frame buffer. This of it as an “data dump” for stuff like textures, shaders and geometry.
Since this “data dump” is limited to 256 MB, the CPU can only send texture, shader and geometry data as and when the GPU requires them.
This introduces some latency – delay from when the GPU requires the data, and the CPU send them.
Turning on Resizable BAR or Smart Access Memory greatly expands the size of that data dump, letting the CPU directly access the GPU’s entire frame buffer memory.
Instead of transferring data when requested by the GPU, the CPU processes and stores the data directly in the graphics memory.
Graphics assets can be transferred to graphics memory in full, instead of in pieces. In addition, multiple transfers can occur simultaneously, instead of being queued up.
While this AMD graphic above suggests that Smart Access Memory will widen the memory path (and thus memory bandwidth) between the CPU and GPU, that is not true.
Smart Access Memory / Resizable BAR will not increase memory bandwidth.
What it does is let the CPU directly access the entire GPU frame buffer memory, instead of using the usual 256 MB “dump”. That reduces latency because the graphics assets are now accessible by the GPU at all times.
Smart Access Memory For Ryzen 3000 : Requirements
This is what you currently require to enable AMD Smart Access Memory for Ryzen 3000 desktop processors :
Hardware
- AMD 500 Series Motherboards
- AMD Ryzen 3000 Series Processors (except Ryzen 5 3400G and Ryzen 3 3200G)
- AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series Graphics Cards
Software
- AMD Radeon Software Driver 20.11.2 or newer
- Latest Motherboard BIOS (AMD AGESA 1.1.0.0 or newer)
AMD currently recommends these X570 motherboards, because they have updated BIOS available :
- ASUS X570 Crosshair VIII Hero WIFI (US|UK|AU|SG|MY)
- ASRock X570 Taichi (US|UK|AU|SG|MY)
- GIGABYTE AORUS X570 Master (US|UK|AU|SG|MY)
- MSI X570 Godlike (US|UK|AU|SG|MY)
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