AMD is bringing Smart Access Memory frame rate increases to Ryzen 3000 processors

The bar has just been lowered (in a good way!) For Resizable BAR, the PCI-Express graphics feature that allows CPUs to directly access the GPU’s onboard memory to improve game frame rates. That’s because AMD has just announced that it is bringing the technology to its next-generation Ryzen 3000 series processors, not just to the new Ryzen 5000 chips that were initially launched with the feature.

AMD originally launched the feature as “AMD Smart Access Memory” and you specifically needed an AMD Ryzen 5000 CPU and an AMD Radeon RX 6000 graphics card to make it work. It was not a particularly easy sale, considering that both have been incredibly difficult to find in retail since they were launched.

But that was an easy sale to Nvidia and Intel, who announced in January that they would be adopting a resizable BAR with initial support for Nvidia’s RTX 3000 series laptop GPUs, and later rolling out to RTX 3000 series desktops when combined with AMD and a selection of Intel CPUs 11th and 10th generation. Nvidia just launched support for the new RTX 3060 desktop video card last week, with its other new GPUs coming in late March (although you also need a motherboard update).

With Ryzen 3000, AMD is really promising up to 16% more performance, compared to the 10% that AMD and Nvidia previously offered, although it really depends on the game. TechSpot found that some games could see a 20 percent increase on the AMD CPU + GPU side of AMD, while other games actually had reduced performance.

Because of the possible disadvantages, Nvidia decided to activate it only for some games where there is a benefit, with the first wave including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Battlefield V, Borderlands 3, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Metro Exodus, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Watch Dogs: Legion.