Smart Memory Access (SAM), otherwise known as Resizable BAR is no longer exclusive to AMD’s Ryzen 5000 CPUs. ASUS has added support for the same to its high-end Z490 motherboards, such as the ROG Maximus XII Apex. As confirmed by Toms, the BIOS options for the Intel boards now include the “Above 4G Decoding” and “Re-Size BAR Support” which are the two requirements for the technology.
The support was added in the BIOS version 1002 and is likely still in beta, so don’t be surprised if there are bugs or crashes. As reported earlier, AMD is presently working with Intel and NVIDIA to bring Resizable BAR support to the former’s CPUs and the latter’s GPUs. This should allow the use of Smart Memory Access (SAM) with a combo of Intel-AMD CPUs and AMD-NVIDIA GPUs, allowing for more optimizing opportunities for the technology.
The beta BIOSes released by AMD’s partners for the B450 and X470 boards already brings support for SAM to older chipsets. However, it’s only compatible with the Ryzen 5000 CPUs, and not the older Zen and Zen 2 based parts.
In our testing, we weren’t able to notice any significant improvements by enabling SAM, but that will vary from game to game, system to system. The benefits are also going to be more prominent on higher-end CPUs such as the Ryzen 5 5900X and 5950X, and the RX 6800 XT and 6900 XT will see the maximum boost in performance.
