AMD’s Ryzen CPU’s are in a class of their own. And we know very the relationship between ASUS and AMD. As such, it is not a surprise that ASUS has decided to bestow upon its B450 motherboard the outstanding AMD Smart Access Memory support for first-gen Ryzen CPUs. The graphics and chipset manufacturers Smart Access Memory or resizable-BAR (Base Address Register) feature helps CPU access the full memory buffer available on any modern GPUs.
AMD is the first to offer this feature on its Ryzen 5000 and 500-series motherboards, but recently, the board manufacturers have unofficially extended the support on AMD’s 400-series and for Intel’s 400-series motherboards. There were already rumors of AMD’s SAM coming to the older generation of its CPUs, and now we are seeing ASUS enabling SAM support for even the 1st generation Ryzen CPUs. AMD Smart Access Memory was enabled on an AMD Ryzen 7 1700 CPU running on ASUS B450-PLUS motherboard. The board was running the latest 2409 BIOS, which was released in early December.
The user who successfully managed to enable SAM on his ASUS motherboard, tested the performance in Doom Eternal. Doom Eternal was tested at 1080p at Ultra preset. The results are as follows:
With AMD SAM DISABLED ON BIOS:
- Run 1: Average FPS: 125.6FPS | Min. FPS: 82.2FPS | Max. FPS: 250.3FPS | 1% Low: 83.6FPS | 0.1% Low: 41.1FPS
- Run 2: Average FPS: 123.0FPS | Min. FPS: 87.4FPS | Max. FPS: 251.1FPS | 1% Low: 86.1FPS | 0.1% Low: 75.7FPS
- Run 3: Average FPS: 123.0FPS | Min. FPS: 87.7FPS | Max. FPS: 251.4FPS | 1% Low: 83.6FPS | 0.1% Low: 73.5FPS
With AMD SAM ENABLED ON BIOS:
- Run 1: Average FPS: 125.9FPS | Min. FPS: 85.4FPS | Max. FPS: 253.0FPS | 1% Low: 86.0FPS | 0.1% Low: 77.1FPS
- Run 2: Average FPS: 124.2FPS | Min. FPS: 82.0FPS | Max. FPS: 252.9FPS | 1% Low: 85.9FPS | 0.1% Low: 43.0FPS
- Run 3: Average FPS: 124.6FPS | Min. FPS: 79.4FPS | Max. FPS: 252.8FPS | 1% Low: 81.7FPS | 0.1% Low: 65.7FPS
Overall Average with AMD SAM ENABLED:
- Average FPS: 124.90FPS | Min. FPS: 82.26FPS | Max. FPS: 252.90FPS | 1% Low: 84.53FPS | 0.1% Low: 61.93FPS
Final Results:
- Average FPS: +0.839%;
- Min. FPS: -6.20%;
- Max. FPS: +0.596%;
- 1% Low: +0.119%;
- 0.1% Low: -2.365%
It is not a surprise to enable AMD’s SAM support on an ASUS motherboard, but using an older generation Ryzen 7 1700 CPU is fantastic. Those who plan on running an older CPU/board combo with a modern GPU will benefit from this new revelation.
