It is curious how technology is taking small steps forward, facilitating our day to day. It has also happened on the PC, with small advances such as the almost absence of configuration jumpers, or the integration of configurable systems from the UEFI or BIOS, but we are still dragging something that is quite curious: the activation of XMP profiles . Why isn’t it done automatically from the BIOS when they are installed?
It would be quite comfortable that when mounting a PC or changing to other RAM modules the motherboard automatically and independently activate its corresponding XMP profile for memory, but instead neither Intel nor AMD bet on it, what reasons do they have?
Activating XMP or AMP profiles is not so easy
Although it takes us a single click to do so, from the point of view of motherboard manufacturers this is actually much more complex. Not because of the activation itself, something that is even easier for them than for us, but because of what it implies.
It must be understood that XMP and AMP are two forms and profiles that involve overclocking the memories and as a consequence this generates a series of direct changes that must be applied if we want stability.
And it is that everything revolves around the latter, since automatic activation is of no use if then the POST fails to pass our PC. Due to the large number of modules, chips and PCBs on the market with their corresponding speeds and timings, it is difficult for a manufacturer to support all of them.
They do quite a lot with QVLs, so as an XMP or AMP profile is not a speed within the JEDEC standard, but rather an overclock mode, no manufacturer will include it by default as activated although it recognizes the memories even within the QVL itself of the motherboard.
Why does this happen if they may have already been tested?
As we mentioned before, the key is stability. Activating XMP profiles involves at least a number of changes on the motherboard:
- Modification of the IMC voltage.
- Modifying the RAM voltage.
- Possible changes in SoC or VCCIO voltages.
- Changes in the internal timings of the bus.
- Changes in the speed of the connection ring between IMC and RAM.
These changes are normally made by the board automatically, but this does not mean that they are correct. Not infrequently, the board supplies more or less voltage than is needed, creating overheating in the CPU or creating instability.
We must understand that when we buy memories, they only guarantee that they work under the parameters that imply them, but the rest is up to us. Being 100% an overclock mode, the rest of the parameters described above are our responsibility, as well as possible damage, instability or poor performance.
No motherboard manufacturer is able to correctly adjust the millivolt and these parameters, mainly because each CPU and memory is different, hence the correlative kits in wafers and others, so ultimately, anything that exceeds the official speed of the JEDEC for the IMC and the motherboard will be a configuration and manual activation on our part, and this is something that does not look like changing either in the short or long term.
