After AMD released the Ryzen 5000 series processors and RX 6000 series graphics cards, it proposed a technology called SAM video memory smart extraction, which allows the processor to access all the graphics memory of the graphics card, which claims to increase game performance by up to 13%.
AMD’s initial platform requirement was 500 series motherboards, but then opened to 400 series motherboards, and manufacturers have begun to update BIOS one after another.
At first I thought this was the unique secret of the AMD 3A platform, but soon, NVIDIA stated that it was just borrowing the PCIe standard technology and their graphics cards could also be used.
Motherboard manufacturers have proved with practical actions that the Intel platform also supports Intel 400 series motherboards with RX 6000 series graphics cards.
After research, it is found that AMD SAM technology is not a mystery, nor is it a patent of any platform, but is based on a special feature in the PCIe standard "Resizable-BAR" (adjustable base address register), so that the processor can identify , Use the full video memory capacity of the graphics card instead of the traditional 256MB.
The PCIe Root Complex of the Ryzen 5000 series processors adds a new physical layer, named full-rate_pdep_u32/64, through which SAM acceleration technology can be realized.
Unfortunately, this change is a new addition to the Zen3 architecture. The previous Zen2, Zen+, and Zen architectures are not available. In other words, the Ryzen 3000/2000/1000 series are completely impossible to support SAM.
However, it is interesting that Intel’s fourth-generation Core Haswell, released in 2014, already supports Resizable-BAR, and the corresponding motherboard starts with the 8 series.
In other words, as long as motherboard manufacturers are willing to provide BIOS, Intel's platform over the past six years can achieve SAM acceleration!
Of course, it is impossible to update the old platform a few years ago, but at least 400 series motherboards with 10th generation Core, 300 series motherboards with 8th/9th generation Core, are all fine, it depends on the motherboard manufacturer.
As long as your motherboard BIOS has these two options, you can enable SAM
