AMD Confirms That Smart Access Memory Isn’t Proprietary and Can Work with Other Hardware

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AMD has released a statement confirming that its Smart Access Memory technology, which grants Ryzen 5000 Series processors full access to Radeon RX 6000 Series GPU memory, isn’t proprietary and can technically work with other hardware.

A recent report revealed that NVIDIA is developing a similar feature that leverages certain specifications already built into PCI Express (i.e., Resizable BAR, which is mentioned in the latter portion of AMD’s statement), so the revelation isn’t all that surprising.

“As the only company offering high performance gaming CPUs and GPUs, AMD is in a unique position to deliver incredible PC gaming experiences,” reads the statement (via PC Gamer). “With AMD Smart Access Memory, we have designed, optimized and validated both hardware and software technologies with all combinations of Ryzen 5000 Series processors, Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards, AMD 500 Series motherboards and the latest drivers and BIOS at launch. We believe this pairing unlocks maximum platform performance.”

“Smart Access Memory is built on features of the PCIe standard and firmware standards (Resizable BAR), and was developed through extensive validation and platform optimization. We welcome the opportunity to support other hardware vendors in their efforts as part of our ongoing commitment to using common and open standards to improve gaming experiences.”

First-party benchmarks from AMD suggest that Smart Access Memory can improve 4K game performance by 5 to 6 percent in many titles. The feature currently requires an AMD 500 Series motherboard, Ryzen 5000 Series processor, and Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics card.

Tsing Mui
News poster at The FPS Review.

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