AMD Radeon Resizable BAR / Smart Access Memory

[W1zzard]

AMD's Smart Access Memory feature is highly interesting. It promises a performance boost when the new Radeon RX 6800 Series cards are paired with an AMD Ryzen Zen 3 processor. We extensively test this in a whole article with 22 games at three resolutions, at up to 4K Ultra HD.

Show full review

 

[Rais]

If you're one of the lucky few who flew to the horn of Africa, joined a pirate gang, hijacked a Maersk superheavy, broke into the right container, and pulled out a Ryzen 5000 processor, then Smart Access Memory is a cool feature to have (no, don't do that)

Too late, i'm already on black lagoon mood.

 

[Ravenas]

It should have been enabled on Ryzen 3000. I agree it should be enabled on Intel chips as well. It should be considered a selling point for the graphics card, not a selling point for platform selection.

 

[Sandbo]

Tbh, that's a difference way too small to even be mentioned, or am I missing something?

 

[ZeppMan217]

Tbh, that's a difference way to small to even be mentioned, or am I missing something?

SAM makes 6800XT marginally faster (3-4%) at sub 4K resolutions, with nothing changing at 4K.
I'm more curious if the plain 6800 is any better with SAM enabled.

 

[W1zzard]

Tbh, that's a difference way to small to even be mentioned, or am I missing something?

It is way bigger than that, and what makes it interesting, it's free and available on all platforms. Of course in a subjective scenario without FPS counter you'd never notice the difference, but all the little gains add up eventually

 

[birdie]

NVIDIA has already announced that they will add a similar feature to their GeForce graphics cards, probably with wider platform support. I'm sure this will lead AMD to open their discovery to more chipsets and hardware combinations.

LMAO.

AMD sure loves a taste of proprietary just like NVIDIA.

 

[bug]

Nvidia red and AMD green. Were you intentionally trying to make our brains hurt reading those graphs?

 

[W1zzard]

Nvidia red and AMD green. Were you intentionally trying to make our brains hurt reading those graphs?

It's the default coloring of my charts. Let me fix this

 

[L'Eliminateur]

weeeezard(ever since watching hoovie's garage bringing cars to the car wizard i can't help it), ¿can you test the effects of enabling HW scheduling on these new cards in a separate article?, it's been several months, a new windows build and several drivers(not to mention game patches) since this feature was introduced but ever since everything has been mum on that front apart from the initial benchmarks done then(on 2004 and initial drivers)

 

[W1zzard]

Nvidia red and AMD green. Were you intentionally trying to make our brains hurt reading those graphs?

Fixed, better?

 

[ZeppMan217]

Fixed, better?

Yas, big thank!

 

[Space Lynx]

I got everything I need to enable this now. I'm excited. I am glad AMD didn't enable it for older CPU just yet though, AMD has bad history of bugs and stability, I'd rather them focus all their energy on getting the latest and greatest to work first, then work their way down the line... mainly cause I just don't trust them to be stable otherwise. I can't wait to game!

 

[claylomax]

What's with the F1 2020 and Project Cars 3 charts compared to the original 6800XT review?
That Intel test system is definitely outdated.

 

[W1zzard]

What's with the F1 2020 and Project Cars 3 charts compared to the original 6800XT review?
That Intel test system is definitely outdated.

Different settings. When those detect a change in CPU they will reset to different details levels, which I noticed only after all I got all data. The data is still valid, just not comparable to the Intel rig

 

[bug]

Fixed, better?

Not ideal, but yes, better.

Ideally, I'd have AMD stick to red, Nvidia to green and Intel to blue. And then I'd use different shades for variations of the same product.

 

[Space Lynx]

I am going to leave SAM enabled 24/7 personally. the 2-3 fps hit on certain games not a big deal to me, the gains in games like gears 5 though is def worth it. I won't have to bother with it, set it and forget it, leave almost all other settings at default for drivers, and game time!

 

[bug]

I am going to leave SAM enabled 24/7 personally. the 2-3 fps hit on certain games not a big deal to me, the gains in games like gears 5 though is def worth it. I won't have to bother with it, set it and forget it, leave almost all other settings at default for drivers, and game time!

Which gain is that? 182fps not enough for you @FHD? Or do the extra 5fps @4k make a difference to you?
It's a slight improvement, but really, nothing to rave about.

 

[claylomax]

Different settings. When those detect a change in CPU they will reset to different details levels, which I noticed only after all I got all data. The data is still valid, just not comparable to the Intel rig

Ok, I see. Thanks.

 

[Space Lynx]

Which gain is that? 182fps not enough for you @FHD? Or do the extra 5fps @4k make a difference to you?
It's a slight improvement, but really, nothing to rave about.

not raving about it... just will be fun to enable... cause why not?

i am raving about getting my hands on a 5600x and non-xt 6800 on their respective launch days, can't believe I got so lucky. was insane trying to check out. and I expect we won't see steady stocks until April 2021... and I am also raving that I just paid $579 for an AMD card in the year 2020 that beats a 2080 ti... are you kidding me? this is a great day for everyone, competition is back on all fronts. this is awesome for the future of our hobby. i can't wait to play cyberpunk 2077 now, i could care less about enabling ray tracing, so nvidia has that win for sure, but meh. im still quite happy

 

[suqd]

Will SAM work if I'm running the GPU in Gen4 x8 mode? I'll be using the other x8 lanes for m.2 Raid1.

 

[W1zzard]

Will SAM work if I'm running the GPU in Gen4 x8 mode? I'll be using the other x8 lanes for m.2 Raid1.

No reason to assume it wouldn't. It has nothing to do with PCIe lanes

 

[chodaboy19]

If you're one of the lucky few who flew to the horn of Africa, joined a pirate gang, hijacked a Maersk superheavy, broke into the right container, and pulled out a Ryzen 5000 processor, then Smart Access Memory is a cool feature to have (no, don't do that).

I enjoyed that closing.

 

[okbuddy]

why under 4k everything came loose, isn't that 128mb cache snake oil

 

[kruk]

LMAO.

AMD sure loves a taste of proprietary just like NVIDIA.

It isn't proprietary, stop making things up: https://www.pcgamer.com/amd-smart-access-memory-not-proprietary-promise/

AMD says its Smart Access Memory isn't proprietary and isn't only locked into working with its own Ryzen 5000-series CPUs and Radeon RX 6000-series GPUs. It's just that it hasn't yet worked with any other hardware vendors to enable it, though it welcomes the opportunity to do so.